Church Of St Joseph And Attached Steps And Walls

The Church of St Joseph, together with its attached steps and walls, is a Roman Catholic church built between 1880 and 1906. The initial design, by W. Kedo Broder, envisioned a church with a polygonal chancel flanked by outer apsidal chapels, a nave, transepts and a tall west tower and spire. The nave and chancel were completed to this design by 1880; the south transept and chapel followed in 1885, designed by J.S. Hansom; the west front, by F.A. Walters, was completed in 1901, and finally the north transept and north chapel in 1906. The church is constructed from Kentish rag stone with Bath stone dressings, and has a slate roof.

The building’s plan incorporates a chancel, side chapel, and shallow transepts leading to a nave. The east end features a five-sided apse with windows of two lights with trefoiled tracery, with gabled buttresses between. The south-east and north-east chapels are octagonal in shape, mirroring the apse windows and featuring buttresses with a single offset. The transepts have two windows of two lights with a sexfoil above, each set under a hoodmould, with gabled buttresses and three stepped lancets in the gable. A single-storey vestry is located on the north-east side. The two-bay nave has low, unwindowed aisles under a lean-to roof; the clerestory features three-light windows with trefoiled tracery and two gabled buttresses that have one offset. The west end has a gabled porch with a flat-arched entrance set under a pointed arch, its archivolt mouldings flowing into splayed reveals. The double doors have elaborate hinges, and the tympanum contains a statue of St Joseph. Above the entrance are two pointed-arched windows, each of two lights with a cinquefoil, set under a single hoodmould, and featuring a vesica-shaped window within the spandrel. The gable also features three stepped lancets, also under a hoodmould. A square stair tower sits to the left of the porch, with a buttress to the right. Steps in two flights lead to the west porch, flanked by walls topped with a spiked rail.

Inside, the apsidal chancel has seven bays with vault-shafts of Bath stone and vaulting in white Beere brick. The chancel arch is combined with a two-bay arcade leading to the transepts; the columns on the south have foliage capitals, while those to the north are uncarved. Slim columns in the transepts also have foliage capitals, supporting a sexpartite vault over the crossing. The nave has two major bays related to the roof vaulting, constructed of stone and brick similar to the chancel, along with four subsidiary bays relating to the arcade of the passage-aisles—these consist of circular columns with simple abaci. An organ gallery is situated at the west end.