Roman Catholic Church Of St Joseph, Front Walls And Steps

Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph

This Roman Catholic church was constructed between 1925 and 1927 to a design by J S Brocklesby. The interior decoration was designed by Gordon Forsyth, principal of the Burslem School of Art, and his daughter, the artist Moira Forsyth.

The building is constructed from red and purple coloured bricks laid in Flemish bond, with dressings of brick and stone, beneath clay pantile roofs. The roof to the apsidal east end has plain tiles, and the transept roofs are hipped. The interior is embellished with a wealth of decorative materials including marble, painting and coloured glass.

The church is oriented with its ritual east end facing approximately south. It is cruciform in plan, comprising a nave and side aisles, a chancel with apsidal end, and towers to the north-west and south-west. Projecting side chapels occupy the east ends of the aisles flanking the sanctuary, both with apses to their eastern sides. The baptistery is situated in the ground floor of the campanile, an organ gallery is positioned above a narthex at the west end, and the sacristy is to the south-east.

In style, the church is early Italianate or Lombardic, ornamented with decorative brick and tile work displaying a variety of techniques. The high west end is gabled and ornamented with blank arcading tiered in the gable itself. It features a wide-arched central doorway with stone capitals and columns below the springing of the arch, flanked by small niches. Above this is a herringbone frieze, arcading, and three tall round-headed lancets with stone columns and capitals. The campanile to the right has four stages of diminishing height enriched with arcading. It displays paired round-arched lancets to the first and third stages, lancets to the second stage, a colonnaded upper stage and a hipped roof. The tower to the north-west has round-headed lancets, a Calvary cross of raised brickwork with a gabled weatherhood, and a conical roof over an open arcade.

The low aisles have round-headed windows with tiled arches above, and scalloped tiles forming a fretted parapet. The high nave is divided into three bays by stepped buttresses which rise above the eaves and are topped with pyramidal caps. The bays have a blind arcade housing smaller round-arched clerestory windows, arcading and a dentilled eaves cornice. The side chapels and sacristy are similarly styled, with round-arched windows and arcading. The chancel has six round-arched windows with tiled heads and arcading below a moulded eaves cornice. The rectangular sacristy projects in front of the chancel.

The interior of the church is Byzantine in inspiration. The nave consists of three bays, each subdivided into three by monolithic columns with scalloped capitals. Brick pilasters rise between each of the main bays up to a deep coved cornice, at the base of which tie beams span the church, creating a two-tier effect. The roof timbers are pine, with a deep coffered flat ceiling. The tie beams and flat ceiling panels are painted in primary colours in medieval-style patterns and depict the coats of arms of the Pope and the Bishop of Birmingham to designs by Gordon Forsyth.

The sanctuary is dominated by a hemispherical ceiling painting of 1935-37 by Moira Forsyth depicting Christ in Glory against a gold background. The walls are clad in coloured marbles and mosaic, whilst the marble reredos is richly decorated with pink and green marble columns and inset panels of pink marble and mosaics. The Lady Chapel at the east end of the north aisle has a marble-clad east wall framing a ceramic panel of the Madonna del Sedia, possibly from the workshop of Benedetto Buglioni. Halfway along the north aisle is an apse containing a wooden painted pietà on a marble stand. A second side chapel dedicated to St Joseph is situated at the east end of the south aisle.

The baptistery in the ground floor of the campanile has a hexagonal stone font on a compound pier, ornate gilded gates, stained glass windows and a painted compartmental ceiling. Other fittings include a marble pulpit inlaid with mosaic tiles from Italy and painted wooden Stations of the Cross from Oberammergau in Germany. The stained glass, designed by Forsyth, depicts saints and biblical scenes.

To the front of the church are low flanking walls of brick and a flight of steps, with a pedestrian gate in a short wall to the east.

The presbytery of 1903 and the modern metal gates on the west side of the church are not included in the listing.