St Joseph's Church is in Skeffington Road, Preston,

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

, England. It is an active

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

church in the

Diocese of Lancaster The Diocese of Lancaster () is a Latin Church Roman Catholic diocese centred on Lancaster Cathedral in the city of Lancaster in Lancashire, England. History The diocese was erected in 1924, taking areas and parishes from the Archdiocese of Liv ...

. The church is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a designated Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

The church was built in 1873–74 and designed by J. O'Byrne. It was built in a district of the town containing cotton mills, and was dedicated to

Saint Joseph According to the canonical Gospels, Joseph (; ) was a 1st-century Jewish man of Nazareth who was married to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and was the legal father of Jesus. Joseph is venerated as Saint Joseph in the Catholic Church, Eastern O ...

, the

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, Eastern Orthodoxy or Oriental Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, fa ...

of workers. The church cost £8,000 to build. In 1897 improvements were carried out, including some decoration and the installation of the

Stations of the Cross The Stations of the Cross or the Way of the Cross, also known as the Via Dolorosa, Way of Sorrows or the , are a series of fourteen images depicting Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ on the day of Crucifixion of Jesus, his crucifixion and acc ...

, at a cost of £2,000.

Architecture

Exterior

St Joseph's is constructed in red brick with

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

dressings and a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

roof. Its plan consists of a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, north and south

aisle An aisle is a linear space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, in buildings such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parliaments, courtrooms, ...

s, a

sanctuary A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred space, sacred place, such as a shrine, protected by ecclesiastical immunity. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This seconda ...

with side chapels (all of these in one vessel), and a north

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

and west porch. The

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d west end is divided into three parts by stepped

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

es, and there are similar buttresses at the corners. In the centre is a projecting porch, also gabled, containing an arched doorway with four orders of moulding, flanked by

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

s. Above the porch are three tall stepped two-light windows within a round-headed arch, and on each side of these is a similar window under a

hood mould In architecture, a hood mould, hood, label mould (from Latin , lip), drip mould or dripstone is an external moulded projection from a wall over an opening to throw off rainwater, historically often in form of a '' pediment''. This moulding can be ...

. Along the sides of the church are six

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

divided by stepped buttresses. Five of these contain triple lancet windows. The east bay is gabled and contains a

wheel window Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term ''rose window'' wa ...

. The

apsidal In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In Byzant ...

sanctuary has an east window of five lancets.

Interior

The church has an "impressive hall-type interior". The arcades are carried on columns of polished pink

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

, and the nave ceiling is

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

ed. The sanctuary and side chapels have

mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

floors. At the west end is a gallery with a wooden arcaded front. The

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a Church (building), church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular a ...

is elaborately carved. It has a central

crocket A crocket (or croquet) is a small, independent decorative element common in Gothic architecture. The name derives from the diminutive of the Old French ''croc'', meaning "hook", due to the resemblance of a crocket to a bishop's Shepherd's crook, ...

canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an a ...

with a spire, and side arcades with crocketed gablets. The reredos includes

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

shafts, and in the side arcades are life-size statues. The marble

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accesse ...

is octagonal, contains statues in arched niches, and has a curved staircase. The stained glass in the east window is by Mayer of Munich. Elsewhere there is stained glass by Casolini of St Helens.

External features

To the east of the church is a brick presbytery in

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

style, with a

crenellate A battlement, in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at intervals t ...

d porch. To the southeast of the church is the former school. This has a tower with a pyramidal spire containing triple arched bell openings.

References

External links

Extract from a book published in 1869
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Joseph's Church, Preston

Roman Catholic churches in Lancashire Grade II listed churches in Lancashire Roman Catholic Diocese of Lancaster Grade II listed Roman Catholic churches in England Roman Catholic churches completed in 1874 Gothic Revival church buildings in England Gothic Revival architecture in Lancashire 19th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United Kingdom