For the education of Catholic girls, the Convent of the Holy Child Jesus opened in Winckley Square in 1875, when the nuns bought number 23, formerly the home of Thomas Batty Addison, the Recorder of Preston, for £2,000. They also rented number 22 until, in 1878, they were able to buy it for the exorbitant sum, so it seemed to them, of £3,000!

The school prospered and the nuns acquired other property in Winckley Square, Ribblesdale Place and Garden Street. In 1935, a new Chapel was opened, the old one becoming the domestic science room.

Still more property was acquired in 1944, in Ribblesdale Place and East Cliff but with the reorganisation of Secondary Education in 1978, Winckley Square Convent was absorbed into Newman College. Three years later, in 1981, it was closed and put up for sale.

The chapel is now known as the church of "Our Lady of Victories", run by the Society of St Pius X.

(extracted from a Pamphlet Ref. P373 in the Harris Reference Library, entitled 'Winckley Square Convent School 1875-1975', and reproduced by kind permission.)