St Joseph Church

Introduction

St Joseph Church in Avon Dassett, within the Archdiocese of Birmingham, is a Gothic Revival building distinguished by chamfered lancets throughout.

Architecture and furnishings

Joseph Knight founded the church. The church comprises a nave, chancel, south chapel and north-west porch tower. The east window consists of three stepped lancets. The tower has two stages and a steep bell-cast pyramidal roof with lead flashing and a decorated iron cross.

The interior features arches of two chamfered orders without imposts throughout. The church has a finely carved and moulded Early English style reredos and altar, with two reliefs and stiff-leaf capitals; the altar has four shafts. The stone pulpit in the north-east corner of the nave, entered from the chancel, has three sides of an octagon, each panelled with a quatrefoil with subsidiary cusps. The font is of moulded plaster with a compound shaft and moulded frieze.

The church has a complete set of stained glass windows, attributed to Hardman (Pevsner). The church is built of coursed squared ironstone with concrete tile roofs, while the tower and presbytery have slate roofs. The chancel has diagonal buttresses with two offsets. The north window of the chancel has paired lancets.

A small polygonal projection is located in the north-west angle. The west front has a splayed plinth and a south diagonal buttress. The west door in the tower has a deep splayed arch, a simple hood mould, and a double-leaf door. The chancel has an arch to the chapel and a segmental-pointed arch and stairway to the pulpit.

The nave has a scissor-braced roof with wall posts and corbels. The chapel has two bays with an arch between, and coupled rafter roofs running east-west in the sanctuary but north-south in the outer bay. The church has a piscina with a trefoiled lancet and a moulded bowl.

Visiting

The Guild pays for flowers, mass and music books, cleaning products, and other incidentals, and organises social events to raise funds. A parish birthday celebration for the Jubilee and Feast of St Francis takes place in the Parish Rooms.