The historic estate at Ushaw College may be turned into a centre for Catholic scholarship run by Durham University, it emerged this week. The move would allow a vast collection of medieval manuscripts and other treasures to stay in one place and be opened up to the public through exhibitions. It will be considered as part of a feasibility study that was agreed by the college trustees – the bishops of the north of England – last week. Their decision, which has been hailed as a “breakthrough” by historians and conservationists, comes as the 200-year-old seminary at the college prepares to close. If the offer by Durham University is accepted, Ushaw’s library, chapel and Georgian frontage would become part of the university’s rapidly expanding Centre for Catholic Studies, a unit of its theology department. Uses are still being sought for the rest of the site, however. Dr Eamon Duffy, a Catholic historian, praised the bishops’ decision as “enlightened” and said it was “an enormous relief to all of us who care about the Church and its past”. He said: “The Catholic Church asserts the indispensibility of tradition, yet in this country Catholics have not always been good stewards of our own traditions.” The college’s magnificent 19th-century buildings and Pugin chapel “embody the resurgence of Catholicism” following the penal laws, Dr Duffy said. Its library, which specialises in medieval manuscripts, has “few rivals” in Britain, he added. Professor Paul Murray, director of Durham’s Centre for Catholic Studies, said the plan for Ushaw fitted into the “new evangelisation” project. “It would celebrate and transmit to scholars and the wider public the riches of our Catholic tradition,” he said. He said the library at Ushaw could open up "new fields of research". Together with the collection at Durham University and Durham Cathedral, he said, it is "arguably the finest collection of medieval manuscripts, incunables and early print books in the country". It is understood that a plan to transfer the library to the ecumenical Liverpool Hope University, favoured by Archbishop Patrick Kelly, has been dropped. The St Cuthbert’s Seminary at Ushaw was founded at Douai, in the Spanish Netherlands, to train English priests during the reign of Elizabeth I. It was relocated to County Durham in 1808. During the 20th century the college trained hundreds of seminarians but this year it had only 26 students in formation. These students are likely to be transferred to Allen Hall in Chelsea, west London, St John’s, Wonersh, Surrey, or St Mary’s, Oscott, in Birmingham.