Church of St Mary and St Joseph

Church of St Mary and St Joseph

A Roman Catholic church completed between 1951 and 1954, designed by Adrian Gilbert Scott as part of the 'Live Architecture' exhibition of the Festival of Britain. The building is constructed in 2-inch Leicestershire brick with concrete vaulting and features a short concrete spire supported on steel plate girders over 18 metres long, topped with a copper roof. The lower roofs are tiled with Lombardic tiles.

The church is planned as a Greek cross with a central lantern. The liturgical east end, featuring a forward baldacchino, faces west, with a liturgical west gallery. The architectural style is inspired by camel vaulted arches, a motif derived from Adrian Scott's brother Giles's unbuilt 1945 designs for Coventry Cathedral, which themselves drew from ancient Persian architecture and buildings such as Clemens Holzmeister's Vienna Crematorium of 1922. The church has also been described as 'Jazz Moderne Byzantine' in character.

The exterior displays a stepped profile with moulded brick banding to cornices at each of the three main levels and strong eaves or parapet mouldings. Tall aluminium windows are a distinctive feature, particularly those set in the splays of the composition. A projecting porch to Upper North Street has a camel arch opening, with a bellcote over the narthex within.

Internally, the narthex, nave, transepts and sanctuary are of equal length with splayed sides leading to a high central crossing. The sanctuary is paved in marble and contains a baldacchino, with sacristies on either side. The priest's sacristy was converted to a weekday chapel in memory of Canon John Wright (parish priest 1946–1970) in 1979. A pulpit of Hornton stone is placed across one of the splayed angles of the central space, raised approximately 3.7 metres above floor level. An altar to Our Lady, a memorial to Canon Bartholomew O'Doherty (parish priest 1920–1946), features a life-size statue of the Madonna and a timber reredos. An octagonal font in Hornton stone is positioned at the liturgical west end, beneath a choir gallery which originally housed the organ, though this has since been lowered into the nave. Pews have been reorganised to reflect liturgical changes, though the minimal alteration required demonstrates the liturgical sophistication of Scott's Greek cross plan.

Around the interior walls runs a dado of Blue Hornton stone, which incorporates stone reliefs of the Stations of the Cross by Peter Watts. The stained glass is by William Wilson of Edinburgh. Adrian Scott donated the light pendants, which follow the same pattern as those he designed for the rebuilding of the House of Commons.

The church represents one of the very first Roman Catholic churches designed after the Second World War, and is remarkable for its plan-form, designed from the outset to allow the entire congregation to be close to the altar, anticipating many ideas later formalised by De Sacra Liturgia in 1963. Its massing is among the most ambitious and satisfying of any post-war church. Regarded as old-fashioned when built, it is now recognised as Adrian Scott's finest church designed independently of his brother, and is appreciated for the handsome quality of its workmanship, materials and design. In 1981, Lord Esher recognised it as an important local landmark, noting how what had once seemed fortress-like and old-fashioned was now recognised as notably functional.