St Joseph’s Cathedral

Introduction

The church, designed by Peter Paul Pugin, took two years to build, cost £10,000, and was opened on 25th November 1888.

History

The church was not fully complete at the time of its opening. A successful begging tour of the continent resulted in the gift of Stations of the Cross from Antwerp. The altar rails were erected by a priest with money received from his Silver Jubilee. A new High Altar was completed in 1907, and a new pulpit was the work of Bolton’s of Cheltenham.

A War Memorial in the form of a Celtic Cross, 18 feet high, was unveiled in 1919. In May 1923, Our Lady’s Grotto at the end of the church was permanently erected. The cathedral offers many people a place for silent prayer, sanctuary, and spiritual refreshment and comfort.

Architecture and furnishings

The church has an apsidal chancel flanked by side chapels, a 7-bay aisled nave with W chapel and baptistry, NW polygonal tower with spire, and twin W porches. The church is in Decorated style with coursed bull-nosed masonry, Bath stone dressings, and red Dumfries stone to nave piers and responds.

The total length of the church is 146 feet, and the height to the apex of the roof is 60 feet. The chancel is divided from the nave by a stone arch rising to a height of 43 feet, with niches holding figures of St Patrick and St Benedict. There is a five-sided chancel with stained glass by Harding over the High Altar.

The church has a modern pantile roof. The west porches have twin pointed doorways with traceried tympana and a figure of St Joseph in a tabernacle. The church has a buttressed clerestory with 3-light traceried windows and to the outer gable of the southwest baptistry. The aisles have triple lancets to buttressed aisles.

There is a wheel window and headstops to the overlapping chapel at the southeast side. The church has an enclosed churchyard with a tall Celtic Cross War Memorial (1919) at the west end.

Music-playing angels are carved into the spandrels of the arches. The church has an arch-braced roof supported on long wall-posts. Lord Petre’s Woburn Organ was obtained for the church.

Sacraments and pastoral care

The parish allows family members to bring up the gifts during the funeral Mass. The cathedral has a Columbarium in its crypt, a sacred environment where Masses are celebrated periodically for the repose of the souls of those interred there. The Columbarium in the crypt is a walled wooden structure with each niche having a wooden door. The Columbarium is intended primarily for parishioners of Saint Joseph’s Cathedral, but with approval, Catholics from other parishes or those with ties to the Cathedral may be interred there. The location of the Cathedral Columbarium permits immediate procession following the Funeral Mass to the Columbarium.