St. Mary’s College, Oscott

St. Mary’s College, Oscott is the major seminary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham. The college was founded (at Maryvale) in May 1794 for the training of priests and the present buildings at New Oscott were completed in 1838 to designs by Joseph Potter and Augustus Welby Pugin. In the 19th Century,

Oscott quickly became a symbol of the rebirth of the Catholic faith in England and played a prominent part in the life of the Church. It was the venue for the Synod of Westminster in 1852, a gathering which was the occasion of Newman’s ‘Second Spring’ sermon.

In 1897, Oscott became for a while the central seminary for southern parts of England and to this day the college still receives students from dioceses throughout England and Wales. At Oscott, formation for the priesthood extends over six years, during which students benefit from an integrated programme of human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation.

From September 2005, the college extended its historic ‘Oscott tradition’ of priestly formation to embrace the formation of permanent deacons, placing the seminary and its spiritual, human and material resources at the service of diaconal formation for both the Archdiocese of Birmingham and neighbouring dioceses.