Church of St Joseph including attached presbytery and stone wall to S and SW

This Roman Catholic church was built around 1840 by the architect John Dobson, in the Early English Gothic Revival style. It was extended in 1862 and again in 1910. The presbytery dates from the same period and is also by John Dobson, though a later north-east extension and its linking block are excluded from the listing. A stone wall with gate piers runs to the south and south-west.

The building is constructed of local sandstone ashlar with Welsh slate roofs.

Layout

The church has a five-bay nave with a north aisle, a square-ended chancel with a north chapel, and a sacristy to the south. There is a projecting south porch and a secondary porch on the north side. The presbytery stands to the east, linked to the chancel by a low range. To the west lies a large graveyard. A stone wall with entrances bounds the church and presbytery to the south and continues around the south-west side of the graveyard.

Church Exterior

The church occupies a prominent position within a former graveyard overlooking the centre of Birtley. All windows are pointed-arched Early English forms, the roofs are pitched, and there is a low plinth and continuous sill band to most elevations.

The rectangular chancel has angle buttresses and is surmounted by a cross finial. The large east window has five stepped lancet lights. Attached to the south side of the chancel is a sacristy with paired lancets and a chimney, extended to the west by a small single-storey, flat-roofed bay.

The nave has five bays and each gable is surmounted by a cross finial. On the south side, the bays are demarcated by stepped buttresses, with a single lancet to each bay with hoodmoulds and enriched foliate stops. The easternmost bay, formerly the sanctuary, is lit by a pair of lancets with foliate and head stops, and there are similar stone heads adorning the buttress top at the end of the nave. The main entrance at the west end of the nave has a gabled porch detailed with triangular water tables with roll moulded tops. The moulded, pointed arched entrance has engaged columns and a hoodmould with circular stops engraved with crosses.

The north aisle displays a variety of window styles, all Early English in character: a single lancet, two-light plate tracery windows, and stepped triple lancet lights, all with hoodmoulds and plain, square stops. A secondary entrance within a gabled porch is in the westernmost bay. The projecting north chapel has single or paired lancets and a coped gable.

The gabled west end forms the principal elevation facing the town and is surmounted by a prominent octagonal mock belfry with arcading, now blocked with stone, and a conical stone roof. The west window is of five stepped lancets, alternately blind and glazed.

Presbytery Exterior

The presbytery faces south and is attached to the south-east corner of the chancel by a low linking block. It has two storeys and three bays under steep pitched roofs of slate with tall stone chimney stacks, a plinth, and prominent water tables.

The central entrance bay has a six-panel door with paired over lights and flanking margin lights, all with stained and leaded glass depicting crosses, beneath a stepped hoodmould with bar stops. The first floor has a gabled half dormer stone cross window.

The right bay is a gabled cross wing with a six-light mullion and transom window to the ground floor and stained glass depicting shields and coats of arms to the lower parts, and a stone cross window above, both with hoodmoulds and bar stops, and a stone finial to the apex. The right return is largely blank.

The left bay is single-storey with a six-light mullion and transom window to its gabled west elevation and a cross finial to the apex.

The later north-east extension to the presbytery is a two-bay, two-storey block with a pitched roof, linked to the original building by a two-storey linking block. Both are of very plain character and are not listed.

Church Interior

Throughout the church, the walls are plainly painted plaster with exposed ashlar stonework to the windows and arcade.

The chancel has a timber boarded wagon roof painted with the arms of major Benedictine houses, medieval and modern. A five-light stained glass east window depicting the Crucifixion is set high up to accommodate the high altar, which has been removed. There is a stone piscina to the sanctuary and a forward altar installed in 1906 of white marble and alabaster with a depiction of the Sacred Heart. The chancel arch is carried on enriched carved stone consoles bearing representations of St Benedict and St Scholastica.

The north chapel contains an octagonal font of 1915 carved in fine limestone with low relief panels of sacred emblems on each of its sides. Two wall-mounted carved wooden panels of the Annunciation and the Nativity, removed from the discarded high altar of 1896, are affixed to the north wall. There is also a three-light Sacred Heart stained glass window by Hardman given in 1906, a lancet with St Edward the Confessor given in 1930, and two windows of Art Nouveau character. War memorial tablets are also affixed to the east wall.

The nave is separated from the north aisle by a wide arcade of plain chamfered arches without capitals. Above is a timber open hammer-beam roof supported on carved stone consoles, set higher on the north side to accommodate the aisle arcade. The body of the nave is filled with oak benches of 1898, with boarded backs and linen fold end panels and more ornate bench fronts with Gothic arcading. The windows of the nave and north aisle retain original stained glass roundels depicting Benedictine saints set into what are now clear diamond quarries. The nave windows have plaster hoodmoulds and head stops.

The north aisle has a flat, boarded ceiling and simple open-backed benches. The westernmost bay contains a stained glass window of the Baptism of our Lord by Archibald John Davies given in 1915, and double doors give access to the secondary entrance. The west gallery, reached by an ornate metal spiral staircase, retains the central part of a Gothic arcaded timber front, flanked by the divided organ. The space below the gallery is partially enclosed to provide a WC and stores.

The south porch has a shoulder-arched entrance fitted with a simple boarded door, an encaustic tiled floor, wainscoting, and a stone Holy Water stoup.

Presbytery Interior

The presbytery retains its original plan and has mostly six-panel doors throughout. It has a rectangular plaster stair arch and a dog-leg staircase. The latter has an ornate beaded newel post and ramped handrail, with a timber, pierced pointed-arched balustrade also with quatrefoils and circles. Double doors leading from the entrance vestibule have stained glass to the windows with the Greek letters Alpha and Omega. Original fireplaces have been removed and replaced with 20th-century examples.

Boundary Wall and Gates

South of the church and presbytery there is a stone wall with double-chamfered stone copings. An entrance to the church is flanked by tall stone pillars surmounted by gabled caps with inset trefoils and trefoil roll moulding to the ridge, and an entrance to the presbytery is flanked by tall narrow pillars with gableted caps. The wall extends west and steps around the churchyard, where it has simple triangular coping stones. A churchyard entrance has square squat pillars with shallow pyramidal caps. All of these features contribute to the special interest of the church and are included in the listing.

The inset red letter box to the south boundary wall is not of special architectural or historic interest.