Church Of Our Lady And St Joseph

The Church of Our Lady and St Joseph is a Roman Catholic parish church located in Consett, built between 1866 and 1869 by Edward Welby Pugin. It is constructed from snecked sandstone with quoins and ashlar dressings, topped with a Welsh slate roof. The church features an aisled nave with a north porch and a chancel, designed in the Decorated style.

The entrance has boarded double doors with elaborate iron hinges, set in a chamfered and moulded two-centred arch within a buttressed, gabled porch. The north gable includes three lancets beneath a six-foil light. The buttressed aisles are adorned with five large lancets on the south side and four on the north, along with a porch at the west end, and six-foil lights at the eastern ends of the aisles. Massive buttresses on the west flank five smaller windows, while a large six-foil light is positioned in the west gable. Dripmoulds, most featuring block stops, enhance the exterior.

The chancel, which has a three-sided apse, contains five groups of three cusped lancets. The roofs are steeply pitched, with a pent roof over the aisles and small cross gables over roundels in each eastern bay. Stone cross finials are present at the west and on the cross gables, along with a small east gabled dormer and a wrought iron cross finial.

Inside, the church features painted plaster with ashlar dressings and arcades. The nave roof is scissor-braced with struts to the principals, and all rafters rest on deeply-moulded corbels. The chancel roof is panelled and supported by marble shafts with 13th-century style capitals and angel corbels. The arcades consist of two narrow arches in each east bay, featuring two-centred moulded arches on alternating round and octagonal piers. Rerearches are present for all windows, and there is a wide segmental-arched west gallery.

The church houses a high-quality Gothic-style altar and reredos made of Caen stone, along with a wooden pulpit and side altar in Gothic style. Most of the stained glass is original, featuring simple geometric patterns, while the west window includes pictorial glass with a depiction of the Lamb at its center.