Church Of St Joseph

Church of St Joseph

Roman Catholic church of 1888–9, designed by Albert Vicars. Built in white brick set in English bond with stone dressings and a slate roof. The building is Neo-Romanesque in style.

The church comprises a chancel and nave under one roof with a dome over the chancel, north and south aisles, and a north-west tower. It has two tiers of windows. Much of the east end is obscured by the buildings of St Joseph's Retreat.

The dome features an octagonal drum with pairs of round-arched windows set back under segmental arches, machicolated eaves to the octagonal roof, topped by a domed lantern, ball and cross, all covered with copper. The south aisle has a low parapeted range with circular windows behind it, four pairs of round-arched windows between buttresses with offsets, and a corbel table to the eaves. Seven large round-arched clerestory windows with corbel table sit above. The north flank has a low parapeted range with circular windows and a side chapel under a separate gabled roof. The chapel has six pairs of round-arched windows to the north and a wheel window to the west, abutting the north aisle proper, of which only one pair of round-arched windows is exposed.

The gabled west end features a central round-arched portal with two flat-arched entrances flanked by red sandstone columns and tympanum filled with statuary. Above is a rose window, stepped back twice under a round arch of gauged brick with plate tracery and flanked by pairs of red sandstone engaged columns. Four-light round-arched windows set back in a sandstone column arcade sit above this. Clasping buttresses to the south side of the west front rise to a pinnacle.

The tower has a flat-arched entrance under a round arch on its west side. The second stage features a three-light window set back under a round-arched arcade of sandstone columns. The third stage has sandstone columns in the re-entrant angles of corners and statues under canopies to three sides. A blank fourth stage precedes the octagonal upper tower with domed pavilions at the corners, round-arched louvred openings to the cardinal directions flanked by sandstone columns, Lombard frieze, cornice, and octagonal copper dome.

Interior

The chancel of two bays has arcading and chancel arch that are broadly Romanesque in character, but integrated with Classical treatment including Corinthian pilasters at the east end, cornice, and panelled archivolt to three sides, under the dome drum. Painted panels fill the spandrels, pendentives, and north and south tympana.

An elaborate baldacchino with Corinthian columns, intricate Renaissance ornamental frieze, dentil and modillion cornice, broken pediments and open ogee crown was made by Sharp and Ryan of Dublin in 1904. The altar comprises inlaid marble with an alabaster reredos. The floor is terrazzo work decorated with emblems in panels.

A round-arched arcade to the nave has six bays with naturalistic and emblematic capitals. The six-bay arcade to the side chapel has stiff-leaf capitals. Painted panels sit between the clerestory windows. The ceiling is panelled and segmental-arched, painted with angels and verses from the Te Deum by N.H.J. Westlake.

A wooden pulpit of 1937 in Renaissance manner is also present.