Church Of Our Lady And St Joseph

The Church of Our Lady and St Joseph is a Roman Catholic church built between 1891 and 1893 by the architectural firm Dunn, Hansom and Dunn from Newcastle. It is constructed of red sandstone ashlar set on a chamfered plinth, featuring stepped buttresses, string courses, and an eaves cornice. The roofs are made of graduated greenslate with coped gables and cross finials, along with decorative ridge tiles. The church has a west tower that rises three stories, an eight-bay nave and chancel under a common roof, and aisles with a contemporary south porch, all designed in the Perpendicular style.

The tower features west double doors set in a pointed arch within a cusped and pedimented porch that includes a statue of Our Lady. A left angle turret projects from the tower and rises above a battlemented parapet, while small two- and three-light traceried windows adorn the structure. The belfry is distinguished by pierced quatrefoil panels with cusped heads beneath flat arches. The aisles are equipped with traceried three-light cusped-headed windows under flat arches, and the north aisle has both broad and narrow interval buttresses. The clerestory windows are two-light and cusped-headed, also under flat arches. The east window features flowing tracery inspired by the Bishop's Eye at Lincoln.

Inside, there is a screened baptistry with an organ gallery that projects from the tower arch above. The seven-bay aisles are supported by grouped and octagonal columns beneath pointed moulded arches. The roof is an open timber vault with carved angel corbels, and the church contains open late 19th-century pine benches. Some windows feature unsigned figurative stained glass from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The chancel displays a carved wooden figure set in an elaborately carved surround under a canopy against the east wall.

Historically, an earlier design for a church on this site by the same architects was published in 1877. The foundation stone was laid on 18 May 1891 on land owned by the Duke of Devonshire, and the church was completed at a cost of £10,000, opening in 1893. An adjoining presbytery made of red brick, also designed by the same architects, dates from the same period but is not included in this listing.