Roman Catholic Church Of St Joseph

The Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph, located in Lytham St Annes, is a church with an attached presbytery built between 1909 and 1914. Designed by Pugin, Pugin and Pugin for James and Roger Taylor, it is constructed of coursed squared yellow sandstone with red sandstone dressings, and has a graduated Cumbrian slate roof. The church is in the Decorated style.

The building is planned on a north-south axis, featuring a nave, east and west aisles, double transepts incorporating side chapels, a sacristy extending from the west transept and linked to the presbytery by a short passage or cloister, and a sanctuary at the south end. A detached north-east tower is linked to the east aisle. The tall, three-stage tower has angle buttresses rising to octagonal pinnacles, weathered bands, a 2-centred arched doorway with a deeply moulded surround (leading to an internal porch), a lettered band above, a canopied niche containing a statue flanked by narrow, two-stage cusped lancets, quatrefoils between stages, a belfry stage with louvred windows, and an elaborate machicolated parapet with pierced lettering and crow-stepped coping. The nave’s gable is divided by buttresses into three bays and has a lettered band, segmental-headed two-light traceried windows in the outer bays, a canopied niche with a statue in the centre bay, three tall narrow two-light traceried windows (the central one stepped up over the niche), and a low three-light window at the apex. The five-bay aisles have moulded cornices and parapets with upstands. They feature two-centred arched three-light traceried windows with linked hoodmoulds, and a five-sided baptistery is attached to the first bay of the west aisle, with a single-light window on each side and a tall polygonal roof. The clerestory of the nave has segmental-headed three-light windows and straight buttresses rising as rectangular pinnacles with blind tracery. The transepts project gabled roofs at right angles to the nave, each featuring a three-light traceried window, and an unusual shallow canted chapel with high-set fenestration and a tall saddleback roof on the south side. The sanctuary has blind arcading at mid-level and a two-centred arched five-light traceried window above.

Inside, the church has seven-bay arcades with cylindrical columns and two-centred arches, and lateral arches bridging the aisles. Elaborate carved reredoses are found on the altars in the sanctuary and chapels. The church was built by brothers James and Roger Taylor, priests, members of a prosperous Fylde farming family who donated it to the diocese of Lancaster.