Catholic Church of St Joseph including attached presbytery

The Catholic Church of St Joseph, together with the attached presbytery, was built in the Decorated Gothic style. The church, dated to the 18th century, is constructed of squared and irregular coursed cream-coloured sandstone with red sandstone dressings and a slate roof. It has a linear east-west plan with a northwest corner tower. The church features a porch in the base of the tower, a nave with north and south aisles, a polygonal apsed sanctuary, and side chapels. Stepped buttresses and moulded string courses are prominent. The west front has a steeply gabled design, showcasing a four-light traceried pointed window within a deeply moulded arch, and a similar arch below a west entrance with flanking paired granite shafts, double doors with strap hinges. The tower has angle buttresses, a moulded surround to a door on its north face, and a niche containing a white marble statue of St Joseph. The top stage of the tower has tall lancet windows. The north and south aisles feature cusped two-light windows with hood moulds and three-light flat-headed windows to the clerestory above. Each aisle ends in a chapel with a steeply pitched roof, coped gables, and cross finials, with traceried two-light windows incorporating quatrefoils to the gables of the chapels and the apsidal sanctuary.

The presbytery, attached via a single-story link to the southeast, is in a domestic Gothic style, using the same materials as the church. It is a substantial two-story building with an attic, arranged around an L-plan with an advanced gable facing Conwy Road, and an entrance within a hipped roof block at the angle of the two ranges. A large canted bay window is within the advanced gable, with paired sashes above and a single window to the attic. An arched doorway is accompanied by similar sash windows above and to the right.

Inside the church, the nave is five bays long, with pointed arches on polished red granite columns supporting the aisle arcades. The nave roof features arch-braced trusses resting on corbels. The sanctuary roof is timbered with stencilled decoration in the spandrels. The chapels contain elaborate carved stone altars: the north chapel houses the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Cusack, and the south chapel contains a work by Boultons of Cheltenham, both dating to 1900-01. A high altar, in a similar style, has an intact marble altar screen. A choir and organ gallery are located at the west end, above the narthex. This area is separated from the nave by an original timber and glass screen. A baptistry, now used as a repository, is situated at the southwest. The organ, originally from Jerusalem Chapel in Penmaenmawr and built by Peter Conacher and Co of Huddersfield, was rebuilt in 1995 by George Sixsmith. Six stained glass windows, dating to 1912 and the work of Harry Clarke, are found in the south aisle. Other stained glass, of 1925 and artist unknown, is within the sanctuary. The south chapel contains a tablet within a Gothic frame dedicated to John Joseph Lennon, Rector of St Gregory’s Weld Bank, Chorley, who died on 12 October 1897.

The interior of the presbytery retains original features including five-panel doors, deep architraves and skirtings, slate and marble fireplaces, an entrance lobby with a screen, a dog leg stair with turned balusters and chamfered newels, and mahogany panelling.