Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph

Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph

This Roman Catholic church was built between 1969 and 1971 to designs by Anthony Jaggard of John Stark & Partners, with L G Mouchel & Partners as structural engineers.

The church is constructed of handmade brick laid in English bond with shuttered concrete, finished with mineral render to the main body and exposed brickwork to projecting elements. A blue brick plinth runs around the base. The shallow-pitched aluminium space-frame roof is clad in lead, and a square lead-clad lantern with steeply-pitched sides rises at the roof, externally reflecting the position of the altar and topped with a large metal cross.

The building is orientated roughly west to east, formed by a double square Mass hall comprising the nave and sanctuary. Attached lower blocks to the west and east contain a narthex and sacristy with kitchen respectively. On the north side is the baptistery with the Weld family pew above it, and to the south is the Blessed Sacrament chapel and a stair tower. These subsidiary spaces are expressed externally as curving walls.

The flat-roofed narthex extends the full width of the church frontage and features a screen of alternating pairs of double doors and windows with aluminium frames; the brick side elevations are blind. The side walls of the main church body have vertical strips of glazing between pilasters with chamfered copings, the upper portions contiguous with a clerestory band. On the north elevation, a partly-engaged curving brick wall of the baptistery tower interrupts this glazing towards the east end. This tower wall is entirely blank, with two concrete spouts set high in the brickwork to discharge roof water. The rear elevation of the lower sacristy block is built of brick with a glazed clerestory and a pair of plain doors at its centre. Beyond this, the east end rises above the lower block with a rendered wall and clerestory. Along the south elevation, the Blessed Sacrament chapel and stair tower are expressed as projecting circular towers of brick, with concrete spouts to the upper chapel wall and a further spout from an adjacent pilaster.

The narthex interior is a rectangular space with exposed brick walls and a painted matchboard ceiling, floored with rectangular concrete slabs. Access to the main church is through one of three entrances: a central pair of timber double doors and single doors to the aisles, all with narrow vertical-glazed strips and shuttered concrete lintels. Flanking the central doorway are alcoves spanned by deep concrete lintels with segmental-arched soffits. The north alcove contains a fixed shelf, while the south contains a free-standing T-plan confessional built of brick with a narrow window of blue-coloured glass and concrete slab internal elements.

The main interior walls are painted brick except for the east end, which displays exposed pale stone-coloured brick laid in header bond, and the exposed darker brickwork of the circular towers. The interior is dominated by the exposed aluminium Triodetic space-frame roof, hand polished and finished with clear lacquer. Its geometrical form is a two-way spanning double-layer grid, flat in the sanctuary area and sloping at 5° towards each end. Plain matchboard roofing can be seen through the latticework. The nave contains concrete pews with felt panels to seats and back supports, topped with wood, and flooring of quarry tiles. Lighting is provided by four box gantries running the length of the pewed area. Small built-in wall sconces of concrete with coloured glass panels are positioned to the side walls, and original Stations of the Cross are set in the lintels above the lower windows. The circular and oval forms of the Blessed Sacrament chapel and baptistery project slightly into the nave and sanctuary, their sides cut away beneath arched concrete lintels forming part of a concrete band to the upper portion, with exposed brickwork elsewhere.

The Blessed Sacrament chapel to the south is top-lit by a circular lantern. To its right, in a recess, is the organ gallery housing a small 18th-century chamber organ in a mahogany case. The baptistery and Weld family pew opposite are similarly treated with a concrete band and lintel, with a cantilevered concrete-slab staircase whose metal balustrade rises to form the balustrade to the upper floor, topped with a wooden handrail. The upper family pew features contemporary belisha-beacon style lighting and is top-lit by oval glazing.

The sanctuary is defined by a raised square laid with quarry tiles with a border of larger square concrete slabs and a timber and metal balustrade to the sides, beyond which are aisles. The altar, a heavy stone slab supported on a black metal frame, stands centrally on a smaller raised square with floor tiles and concrete slab border, lit from above by the pyramidal lantern. The east wall has two shallow recesses with projecting concrete shelves holding painted and gilded wood statues of Our Lady and St Joseph, both Italian works. Two pairs of double doors, matching those from the narthex, flank the statues and provide access to the two sacristies.

In the Blessed Sacrament chapel stands a welded steel and glass-reinforced polyester resin Tree of Life sculpture featuring a Dalmatian pelican in its upper branches, by Geoffrey Teychenne; the high circular table on which the tabernacle stands is a later addition. A silver crucifix, also by Teychenne, originally positioned centrally in the sanctuary, has been relocated to one side. A circular drum font is situated below the Weld family pew.

Attached to the north-east is a detached two-storey rectory of buff-coloured brick with a slate roof and off-centre ridge stack. Boundary walls to Dorchester Road and the church front are of matching brickwork to the principal building, with brick capping and regularly-spaced brick piers. To the rear (east) of the church is a Lourdes Grotto erected in 1991, built of random rubble stone incorporating small stones from Lourdes and Medjugorje with concrete. The rectory, boundary walls, and grotto are architecturally modest and excluded from the listing.