St Joseph's Church is a

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in the London Borou ...

Borough of Brent Brent () is a borough in north-west London, England. It is known for landmarks such as Wembley Stadium, the Swaminarayan Temple and the Kiln Theatre. It also contains the Welsh Harp reservoir and the Park Royal commercial estate. The local au ...

, London. It was built in 1957 in a modern form of

Romanesque Revival architecture Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended t ...

that also borrows from

Neo-Byzantine architecture Neo-Byzantine architecture (also referred to as Byzantine Revival) was a revival movement, most frequently seen in religious, institutional and public buildings. It incorporates elements of the Byzantine style associated with Eastern and Or ...

. It was designed by the architectural firm of Reynolds and Scott. They were one of the most prolific post-World War II architects in the UK. It is situated facing the junction of High Road Wembley, Harrow Road and Wembley Hill Road, in the centre of Wembley. On 4 November 2016, it was designated a

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, H ...

History

Foundation

During the 19th century, Catholics in Wembley had to travel to

Harlesden Harlesden is a district in the London Borough of Brent, north-west London. Located north of the Grand Union Canal and Wormwood Scrubs, the Harrow Road flows through the centre of the area which goes eastwards to Central London and west towar ...

to go to

Mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

. In 1901, a chapel for a convent from Harley Place in

Marylebone Marylebone (usually , also ) is an area in London, England, and is located in the City of Westminster. It is in Central London and part of the West End. Oxford Street forms its southern boundary. An ancient parish and latterly a metropo ...

was dismantled and then reassembled in Wembley Green. It was originally meant to be a cemetery chapel for a Catholic graveyard to the south of the current church, but most of the land for the graveyard was sold off and the building became the chapel for the Catholics in the area. In 1911, it became the

Catholic parish church In the Catholic Church, a parish () is a stable community of the faithful within a particular church, whose pastoral care has been entrusted to a pastor#Catholicism, parish priest (Latin: ''parochus''), under the authority of the diocesan Bishop ( ...

for Wembley. It was small redbrick building, dedicated to St Joseph. In 1918, it was recorded that there were only 120 Catholics in Wembley. However, by the early 1950s, it was recorded that there were 1,650 people, mostly Irish families who had moved from nearby

Willesden Willesden () is an area of north-west London, situated 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Charing Cross. It is historically a parish in the county of Middlesex that was incorporated as the Municipal Borough of Willesden in 1933; it has formed ...

Construction

With such a growing Catholic population, a new larger church was needed to accommodate them. In 1955, construction work began on a larger church to replace the small one. The architects were Francis Maurice Reynolds and William Scott who founded their firm Reynolds & Scott in 1947. They designed over fifty churches in England in the post-World War II reconstruction. They used modern materials and techniques to build churches in Romanesque, Byzantine and Gothic styles. In December 1957, the church was opened. The church's capacity was 680 people. However, the cost of the church was quite large and took 19 years to pay off. Therefore, in 1976, the church was consecrated. Cardinal Basil Hume,

Archbishop of Westminster The archbishop of Westminster heads the Roman Catholic Diocese of Westminster, in England. The incumbent is the metropolitan of the Province of Westminster, chief metropolitan of England and Wales and, as a matter of custom, is elected presid ...

, presided at the ceremony. After 1965, changes were made to the interior of the church with a stone

altar An altar is a table or platform for the presentation of religion, religious offerings, for sacrifices, or for other ritualistic purposes. Altars are found at shrines, temples, Church (building), churches, and other places of worship. They are use ...

installed at the front of the

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 ...

Parish

Next to the church, to the south is St Joseph's Junior School. The church has five Sunday Masses at 6:30 pm on Saturday and at 9:00 am, 10:45 am, 12:30 pm and 7:30 pm on Sunday.

References

External links