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Summary

Description

Pugin and Pugin, dated 1905. Tall, rectangular-plan gothic-detailed church with 7-bay nave, side aisles incorporating chapels and confessionals, polygonal stair tower and oratory (former baptistry). Bull-faced red sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. Deep base course and moulded eaves course; string courses to SW. Traceried circular, pointed- and segmental-arched openings, some hoodmoulded. 2- and 3-stage coped buttresses; Voussoirs; raked cills; quatrefoil vents.

SW (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: tall gabled elevation with 2 doors (each 2-leaf boarded timber with traceried head) surmounted by relief-carved and dated band giving way to tall windows, centre buttress with carved statue of St Joseph in niche at 2nd stage; circular window in gablehead surmounted by further tiny circular window and cross finial. Outer buttresses giving way to projecting, buttressed stair tower at left and side aisle beyond with door and circular window offset above; broader single stage oratory projecting at right and masking side aisle, flat-roofed bay with segmental arched tripartite window at outer right probably later. All openings pointed-arch unless otherwise stated.

NW ELEVATION: projecting side aisle with window to each bay, door to penultimate bay at left, 2 small windows to outer left and further window on return to left; regular fenestration with dividing buttresses to 1st stage of nave and tall window to chancel window to chancel, all others segmental.

SE ELEVATION: mirrors NW elevation but with additional full-width flat-roofed passageway projecting from side aisle. Windows to side aisle and passageway square-headed incorporating trefoil tracery.

NE ELEVATION: large segmental-arched window at centre close to gablehead and 2 small gabled bays projecting at left.

INTERIOR: fine arcaded interior with clerestory windows and queenpost truss roof with some stencilled panels to chancel. Fixed timber pews. Coloured marble fittings mostly 1928 (see Notes). Window from baptistry moved to New Baptistry 1991. E window, John Hardman Studio, depicts Holy Spirit with emblems of Four Evangelists. Organ in small timber gallery to SW.

Diamond-pattern leading glazing with coloured margins and much coloured figurative glass; secondary exterior plastic guards. Small green slates with pierced ridge tiles. Ashlar-coped skews with mitre skewputts. Decorative cast-iron square-section gutters and rainwater hoppers with polygonal downpipes.

BOUNDARY WALLS, GATEPIERS AND RAILINGS: low saddleback-coped bull-faced boundary walls with inset railings and polygonal gatepiers.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Opened on the 18th of June, 1905, just one year after the death of Peter Paul Pugin, St Joseph's is dominantly sited on the Glasgow road adjacent to the Livingstone Memorial Church. Blantyre's prosperity at this time was due to the opening of six collieries. The tall building with steeply-pitched roof is said to rival (though not permitted to rise above) the six-stage tower of the Memorial Church. Officials at the opening ceremony included preacher Dr Hackett, Deacon Fr O'Neil, Sub-deacon Fr Smythe and Archbishop of Glasgow J Maguire. Built at a cost of £100,000, St Joseph's underwent little change until 1924 when the vestry area and sacristy may have been added, and 1928 reredos of Caen marble and altar of Carrara marble were designed by Ernest Schoefelberg of London and erected by Messrs Vickers of Glasgow. At that time, the interior was re-decorated by Messrs Stirling & Sons of Glasgow to the designs of Mr Morton of the Glasgow School of Art, and stencils executed by John Hardman Studios. The church was re-opened on the 4th August, 1928. The next significant date seems to be 1948 when the east rose window was installed by John Hardman Studio, Birmingham at a cost of £775, and the Sacred Heart Altar (Baptistry) of 'white Sicilian and coloured marbles similar to present altars' by Galbraith & Winton Ltd, Marble & Tile Contractors, at a cost of £1,466. Further work was carried out by the John Hardman Studios in 1954. St Joseph's principal gabled elevation is divided into the standard 'A' form typical of Peter Paul Pugin, and is a perfect example of his basilican plan as described by Sanders 'with a short sanctuary and clear views from the nave and aisles, which had become standard for British Catholic churches at least since E W Pugin's adoption of slightly before 1860'. The Art Deco Presbytery flanks the church to its north west and is listed separately.

References

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