(Catholic Press, 6 September 1917, in McGovern). This notwithstanding, the grant was approved but the deed was not issued until 1879. As Sydney was without an ecclesiastical seminary an educational function was attached to the grant. Apparently the splendid isolation of the site, yet its general proximity to the city of Sydney was thought appropriate by the Church, given the need for access to a major urban centre which was a focus to the region, and a locale which enabled serious study and retreat from the pressures of normal society. Ironically, as Henry Parkes pushed through the secular Public Instruction Bill, the grant on which the largest Catholic seminary in the southern hemisphere was to be built was consolidated. In 1885, plans for the Diocesan seminary were drawn up by the Sydney architects Sheerin and Hennessy. Work began during June 1885; the foundation stone was laid and blessed on 19 November 1885, and on 23 January 1889, the opening ceremony was conducted. The magnificent and commanding structure cost 70,000 pounds to build. The builder was W.H. Jennings. The driving force behind its construction was Cardinal Patrick Moran whose strength of personality is indelibly manifest in various architectural and other details, notably the use of his initials and regalia in various carved and cast panels. The erection of the College coincided with Manly's first, though modest, suburban boom. Despite delays in building and the loss of the life of a labourer, the hill became 'the scene of great activity':  `Three hundred and twenty five men were on the pay-sheet. Labourers' tents and workmen's sheds sprang up with lightning like rapidity, so that the once desolate hill was now a veritable calico-town by day, and resembled a bivouacked army by night.' As far as building materials were concerned, the article continued,  `One cause of trouble was the contractor's inability to secure suitable stone. The opening stages of the work were built with stone hewn from near the tennis-court. The material from that quarter proving inferior, and smallpox barring entrance into the quarantine reserve, recourse had finally to be made to the quarry on the site of the Grotto of our Lady of Lourdes'.("Manly", Vol. 1, No. 1, 1916, p. 36). The Archbishop's Residence was built slightly earlier at a cost of 10,500 pounds. Problems with its sandstone (which are evident today) led to a choice of a different quarry for the College.