St Joseph, Port Talbot

Introduction

St Joseph in Port Talbot was built in 1930 by F R Bates and Son in Early Christian style with a basilican interior. The church replaced an earlier church of 1862.

History

In 1849, a mission was established to serve the Irish Catholic population in Aberavon, with Father Charles Kavanagh appointed. Under Father Edward Glassbrook, who arrived in 1860, a church that also housed a school was built on the site where St Joseph's stands today, designed by John King. A separate school was built next to the church in 1870. When Father Philip Kelly arrived as parish priest in 1905, he oversaw the construction of a large new presbytery in 1906, followed by a parish hall in 1928.

On 11 September 1930, the foundation stone was laid by Archbishop Francis Mostyn of Cardiff. The architect, Cyril Bates, designed the building in the Romanesque Revival style, with a campanile tower, apsidal chancel, and nave with aisles. The church has an SE tower and campanile, nave, apsidal chancel, N and S aisles and S vestry, constructed of red brick under slate roofs.

Architecture and furnishings

The chancel has a three-tier stepped altar of dark green and white marble, with a table in front faced with panels of dark green marble. The church is listed as a rare and unaltered example of the Early Christian style in early C20 Welsh architecture. The entrance is a central gabled porch of whitened stone, with tapering round columns with cushion capitals supporting a round arched entrance with panelled soffit. Above the porch is a large circular window with horizontal and vertical glazing bars.

The tower has a pronounced Lombard frieze in pale stone supporting a few courses of red brick, above which is a hipped roof with tall finial. The south aisle has pairs of round-headed lights, each with a central pier with chamfered angles. Projecting from the west gable end is the leaded dome of the apsidal chancel, beneath which are three single round-headed lights. The ends of the aisles have smaller leaded domes to apsidal-ended altars, also with single round-headed lights.

The interior has a narthex at the east end with blind round arches to each side, and three round-headed doorways lead into the nave. Above the narthex is a gallery with a three-panel front supported on four moulded corbels, with the organ located on the north side. The nave has seven-bay arcades consisting of tapering round columns with cushion capitals supporting round arches. The nave has an eight-bay roof with tie-beam trusses supporting a semi-circular brace to centre between vertical struts and with further arched braces flanking.

The chancel arch is round moulded and supported on tall pilasters with short square capitals. The church has a flat-roofed bay abutting the south side of the tower, with a single light over a flat-headed panelled door. The north side has a square headed projection in the angle of nave and aisle to the left, then to the right, a pair of round-headed lights, a flat headed porch and then a catslide projection. The south and north sides have eight round-headed clerestorey windows above single storey lean-to aisles which continue to the west end of the nave.

The east gable-end facade has a pronounced triangular pediment, with pale stone dressings decorated with modillions and dentils, and is surmounted by a cross finial. The clerestorey windows have deeply splayed sills and pink and yellow stained glass, including IHS and fleur-de-lis motifs. The church has round-headed stoups at intervals around the walls. The apsidal chancel has stained glass to the three lights, of biblical figures, flanked by piscinas.

To the right of the chancel is a three-tier altar to the Sacred Heart, with yellow marble inlay, and a piscina in the wall to the rear. Offset to the right is an octagonal stone font with incised quatrefoils on a tall stem.

Parish life

The parish serves Port Talbot, Cwmavon, and the surrounding Afan Valley. St Joseph's and St Philip Evans in Cwmavon are served together as a single parish under the Archdiocese of Cardiff-Menevia.

The parish has grown alongside the local community, particularly during the industrial expansion of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when many Catholic families came to the area to work in the docks and steelworks. St Joseph's became a spiritual home for generations, providing not only Mass and the sacraments, but also education and strong community support. The parish website offers Mass times, parish news, sacramental information, and details of parish activities.

Visiting

A small shop is accessible through late C20 double doors to the left of the narthex front. The entrance is to the east and the chancel to the west. A panelled door within a round arch on the south side provides access to the gallery. Pairs of round-headed double doors lead out to each side into catslide projections, some with blind balustrading to the upper tier.

The church has pews with carved bench ends. Two doors lead south into the vestry.