Church of St Joseph (Catholic) Weymouth and Portland, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

WEYMOUTH

873-1/0/10022 STAVORDALE ROAD 24-MAR-09 CHURCH OF ST JOSEPH Catholic Church

II Roman Catholic Church and attached presbytery. Built in 1933-4 and designed by George Drysdale in a Romanesque style. MATERIALS: Brick with dressings of cast concrete and some limestone. The roofs are clad in Cornish slate. The Fenestration has all been replaced in uPVC. PLAN: A linear plan comprising a nave with narthex, baptistery and narrow circulation aisles, and a chancel. The linked sacristy is to south east, and the attached presbytery is on the south side. EXTERIOR: The liturgical west front (north east) has an entrance of paired timber doors beneath a canopy supported on heavy consoles. To either side of the doorway is a two-light window with a string course of vetruvian scrollwork. The canopy has an ogee copper roof that sweeps up to a circular window set in an octagonal surround with carved stone symbols of the Evangelists arranged around this in a cruciform pattern. Above is a large IHS monogram in relief. The belfry stage is slightly narrower with carved stone consoles and at the centre a blue and white glazed ceramic of the Virgin and Child and is topped by an open pediment housing a single bell and surmounted by a cross. To either side of the bell housing are carved stone or cast concrete blocks which are carved with sacred monograms. The side elevations are of plain, painted brickwork, with six two-light round-headed lancets in the clerestorey. At the east end of the south aisle is a side entrance porch with a hipped roof. The chancel is under the continuous roof but is narrower on its south side. The north and south elevations of the chancel each have a window with Y-tracery set high in the wall.

The attached presbytery is built in matching painted brickwork with a Cornish slate roof, in a Free Domestic Revival style with a hipped roof and tall stacks. All the windows have been renewed with late-C20 uPVC frames. Although it forms part of Drysdale's design, it is unremarkable for a building of this date and is of lesser interest. INTERIOR: A small lobby leads into a narthex with an organ/choir gallery above. Above the gallery, the west wall is articulated by three round-headed arches. The nave is a broad high space with an exposed queen strut roof with additional angled struts. The arcade comprises two broad, pointed arches which are flanked by lower, rounded-headed arches, and are carried on rectangular piers. The central piers are of exposed brick with a stone capital. The narrow circulation aisles are windowless and have steeply raking roofs with exposed rafters. At the east end of the nave, the chancel arch is framed by an open-bed pediment moulding and further moulded panels to the sides. The chancel roof is barrel-vaulted and a curved east wall. Framed openings on either side of the altar provide access to the back of the gradine (a raised step or ledge behind the altar), and to the sacristy and presbytery. There are further decorative mouldings to the side walls of the chancel; framing statue niches and the recesses for the sacrament. The furnishings include an altar of white marble with an inset panel of veined yellow marble dating from 1937, though it has been detached from its gradine and moved forward; an octagonal stone font; an organ of classical design; simple pine pews; and parquet flooring. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: In the small side garden on the east side of the church is the Lourdes grotto; a war memorial built of rubble stone and surmounted by a statue of the Virgin Mary. HISTORY: St Joseph's was designed by the architect George Drysdale (1881-1949) who set up in partnership with Leonard Stokes in 1919. After Stokes' death in 1925 the practice continued as Stokes and Drysdale until 1947. St Joseph's Church is one of two Catholic churches in Weymouth . A presbytery was built at the liturgical east end of the church, and a parish hall was added beyond the presbytery (south) i