St. Joseph

Introduction

Saint Joseph's Church in Bradford, within the Diocese of Leeds, was built in 1885-87 and designed by Edward Simpson.

History

The church is in Gothic Revival style, with coursed stone, ashlar dressings and slate roofs. The parish began on Grafton Street in 1868, with the school chapel opened on Friday 26th May. The church was opened on 14th September 1887, the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross. The church was consecrated on 14th September 1937, the same feast day fifty years later.

Architecture and furnishings

The floors, communion rail, and choir stalls were all replaced in 1937 to mark the building's Golden Jubilee. The three side chapels have marble altars added in 1937. The church comprises a nave and chancel under a single roof, with aisles and double transepts. The west front includes a single-storey lean-to porch added in 1964, featuring a triangular headed central doorway flanked by single 3-light mullion windows.

The west gable displays a broad central lancet window with cusped lower tracery and flanking shafts topped with carved figures under canopies, standing either side of a central crucifixion. The north aisle ends in a half-octagonal baptistery with a gable to each face over a circular window with six tracery cusps, and below two square openings each containing a quatrefoil. The south aisle ends in the original porch, which would have formed the base of a tower, with a pointed arched entrance doorway. The nave has three pairs of clerestorey windows on either side and no aisle windows below; each window consists of two plain lancets and a linking quatrefoil.

The double transepts have similar 2-light windows with lower tracery and a linking upper mandala or vesica. The chancel has three lancet windows to the north and two to the south. The east end features a large central pointed arched window with 2-lights and a linking mandala. The interior has a tall and broad chancel arch.

The nave has two double chamfered and pointed arched arcades supported on octagonal piers to the south, and a similar 3-arched arcade to the north. The transepts have tall double-arched arcades. The church has fine quality decorative timber roofs to the nave, chancel, and aisles. Large painted stations of the cross adorn the upper sections of the aisle walls.

The church retains its original organ, wooden pews, and carved stone reredos with 5 figures under a later carved wooden canopy. Figures of saints under canopies are present in the church.

Parish life

In 2016, the parish became the site of the Catholic Chaplaincy to the University of Bradford and Bradford College. In 2016, Saint Joseph's became the stable home for Holy Mass offered in the Extraordinary Form, celebrated in Latin according to the Missal of 1962.

Students run a Catholic Society called CathSoc, which organises talks, spiritual activities, social events, trips and fundraising. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Sisters of the Cross and Passion came to the parish to run the school. There was a large Polish community at Saint Joseph's until the 1960s, when the Polish Church on Edmund Street was opened.

Sacraments and pastoral care

The Chaplaincy provides for the spiritual needs of Catholic students and staff on campus, and offers pastoral support and faith formation to all members of the University of Bradford and Bradford College. The Chaplaincy is based at Saint Joseph's Catholic Church on Pakington Street, and staff and students are invited to participate in the services and activities of the parish. Confession is available on request and by appointment.