Quinpool Road in 1899, with the Monastery of the Good
Shepherd, St. Ann's College and the Catholic
orphanage
Archbishop Cornelius O'Brien acquired 15 acres (6 hectares) of
land on Quinpool Road in 1893. Five acres were used for Holy Heart
Seminary, which occupied the north side of Quinpool from Monastery
Lane to Vernon Street from its opening in 1895 until it closed in
1970 and the property was sold. The buildings were torn down, and
Quinpool Centre and Quinpool Court were built in their place.
The remaining 10 acres acquired by Archbishop O'Brien (between
Windsor Street, Quinpool Road and the seminary) were originally
used for the new campus of St. Mary’s College, which opened in 1903
and remained at that site until 1951, when it moved to its present
site on Robie Street and became Saint Mary's University. St.
Patrick's High School and St. Vincent's Guest House were then built
on the land on Quinpool.
I can remember that part of the complex of buildings associated
with the seminary were a monastery (from which Monastery Lane took
its name) and a laundry run by nuns. My parents regularly took some
items there in the early 1960s, and I was once as a child invited
to have a tour of the laundry facilities by the nuns, most of the
details of which have long escaped me.