Church Of St Joseph

The Church of St Joseph is a Roman Catholic church built between 1861 and 1862 by architect Matthew Ellison Hadfield from Sheffield and constructed by Messrs J Robinson of Hyde, Cheshire. It is made of hammer-dressed Yorkshire grit-stone with Hollington stone dressings and has slate roofs. The church features a basilican plan that includes a nave with a clerestory, a three-sided apse, aisles, and a two-storey sacristy on the south side of the base of the tower. The nave and apse are covered by a single roof pitch.

The architectural style is a simplified High Victorian Gothic with early decorated details typical of English design. The liturgical west front has two lancet windows flanking an ogee-headed door beneath a pitched gable adorned with crockets. Above this, there are two 3-light windows with geometric tracery and a cinquefoil roundel in the gable. The clerestory and apse windows also feature 3-light tracery, while the aisle's liturgical east windows have segmental tracery.

Inside, the church has 5-bay nave arcades supported by Derbyshire marble bases and Yorkshire stone shafts and capitals, with simplified chamfered arches. The nave roof is arched and braced with paneling. The chancel arch is reduced to doubled arched braces with quatrefoil paneling set on a stone corbel. The aisle roofs are exposed and raftered. Original built-in confessionals extend through the aisle walls beneath the traceried windows. There is a west gallery, and the high altar along with chancel furniture serves as a memorial to those who died in the 1914-1918 war. The east window, which is stained glass, dates from 1882.

The design of the church was heavily influenced by Hadfield's former partner George Goldie and reflects a mid-century reaction against the planning and liturgical principles of A W N Pugin, aiming to maximize space for the congregation, enhance visibility and acoustics, and provide ample light.