Loyola Hall 2.41

Loyola Hall or Loyola Hall Jesuit Spirituality Centre is a country house built in the 19th-century in Rainhill, Merseyside, England, by Bartholomew Bretherton. It was a retreat house run by the Society of Jesus from 1923 to 2014. It is situated on the Warrington Road, next to St Bartholomew's Church. It is a Grade II listed building.HistorySiteBartholomew Bretherton started a business in coaches in 1800 in Liverpool. On journeys to Manchester or London, Rainhill was the first stop where horses were changed. In 1807 he came to live in the village.In 1824 he built Rainhill House. In 1869, Mary Stapleton-Bretherton, his daughter, enlarged the house to over twice its original size, renaming it Rainhill Hall. When Mary died in 1883, the Stapleton-Bretherton family owned all the land that made up the parish of Rainhill.As Mary was childless, she left the family estate to Frederick Bretherton, the only son of her cousin Bartholomew Bretherton, a former coach proprietor. His granddaughter Evelyn Stapleton-Bretherton married Prince Gebhard Blücher von Wahlstatt (1865–1931), becoming Princess Evelyn Blücher. Her memoirs, Princess Blucher, English Wife in Berlin (Constable, 1920) were translated into French and German and reprinted many times, becoming a minor classic.