Roman Catholic Church Of St Joseph

The Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph, located on Plymouth Grove in Longsight, Manchester, was built between 1914 and 1915 by architects Lowther and Rigby. This church is constructed from red glazed brick in Flemish bond, featuring red sandstone dressings and a slate roof, and is designed in the Arts and Crafts style.

The church has a five-bay nave oriented on a north-south axis, with a north porch, a north-east tower, aisles, and a south chancel. The gabled entrance on the north side includes a projected single-storey porch or narthex, which has a plinth and a stylised embattled parapet. It features cusped lancets on either side of a wide splayed sandstone entrance arch, which has a cyma-arched head and hoodmould. Inside the arch, there are two doorways with shaped lintels and wooden-mullioned doors that have glazed panels and ornamental L-hinges. Above these doors, there is a carved plaque depicting a lamb-and-flag emblem, flanked by batons with lettered banners, and to the right, there is a canted baptistery.

The nave's gable is supported by buttresses and includes a tall segmental-pointed three-light window with chamfered mullions, cusped mouchette tracery, and small-paned coloured leaded glazing, topped by a coped gable with kneelers. To the left of the nave is a short five-sided stair turret leading to the tower, which is tall and square, featuring plain diagonal full-height buttresses and a steeply pitched pyramidal roof with swept eaves, stone gargoyles, and corner turrets. The tower has a segmental-pointed doorway on the left side, topped by a gable, with a statue in a niche above it, and large recessed segmental-pointed two-light belfry louvres with weathered sills. The aisles and nave are adorned with pilaster-buttresses and two-light mullioned windows, with the aisle windows showcasing Art Nouveau cusping, while the nave windows are very tall and feature tracery in the heads along with small-paned coloured glazing. The interior has not been inspected.