St Joseph's RC Church

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey French Gothic style RC Church of 1879-80 by Timothy Hevey, set within a terrace of warehouses on the SW side of Prince’s Dock Street. To the rear of the church (and facing on to Pilot Street) is the church rectory house. The church closed in February 2001 and is currently vacant.

The symmetrical front elevation faces NE. It is in squared greywacke stone with dressed red sandstone as quoins architraves, courses, coping etc. and consists of a gable with a taller central gable which rises into a flying buttressed tower with stone spire. There is a tall hoarding in front of the ground floor level of the elevation, and so when surveyed much of this was obscured.

To the centre of the ground floor is the entrance. This consists of a large timber double door set within a large semicircular headed architrave with large semicircular fanlight with petal tracery in red sandstone. This architrave appears to have marble ¾ ‘colonettes’ to either side, but these could not be seen fully. The whole doorway is set within a shallow gabled porch with stone coping with a crow-stepped verge. To either side of the porch are plain pilasters which rise the full height of the gable to form corner buttresses for the tower. There are a further set of outer pilasters beyond these, which size to from flying buttresses above the gable level. Between each set of buttresses (either side of the doorway) is a narrow semicircular headed window, topped with a small plain gable. These windows sit within a broad shallow buttress-like feature, which stretches between the pilasters. Above each of these pilasters is another semicircular headed window, set at an intermediate level (both windows light the stairwells).

The porch cuts across a broad stone string course, with a ‘panelled’ course of stone immediately above this. In the ‘spandrel’ panels between the roof of the porch and the string course there is some decorative floral moulding. Above this is a pair of tall semi-circular headed windows with marble ¾ colonettes to their architraves. Above these windows is large quatrefoil window, and above this is a line of the gable which has a bracketed verge. Above this the gable merges with the rectangular (two level) tower. The lower level of the tower has two flying buttresses to the NW and SE faces with pinnacle caps with crockets to the buttresses themselves. These flying buttresses stretch directly to the main corner buttresses of the tower, which have pinnacles as before. At the same level as the pinnacles on the front (NE) face of the tower there is a central niche with a statue of St Joseph therein. To the rear (NW) there are two broad recesses with double semicircular arched heads. There is a similar single niche to the SE and SW faces.

The upper level of the tower contains the bell and has two large segmental headed louvered openings to the front and rear. These have marble ¾ colonettes to there reveals. There are similar single openings to the SE and NW sides. At this level the corner buttresses change from square to six-sided. These rise, (through a bracketed cornice course with gargoyles), into eight-sided pinnacles. The tower is capped with a relatively short four-sided stone spire with a small opening to each side. The spire is topped with a weathervane.

To the NW and SE only the sides of the of the higher central part of the gable are exposed. This sides are in red brick and have four pairs of semicircular headed windows with yellow-grey sandstone dressings.

The rear (SW) gable is also in red brick. The large single storey gabled chancel extends from the lower half of the gable and follows the shape of the main gable itself, having lower sections to NW and SE. Above this (to main gable) there is a large round window, whose original rose tracery has been replaced with cross tracery (carried out in 1959). Above this window there is a small semicircular headed window. The gable of the chancel could not be seen, but internal evidence shows that it has a large semicircular headed window with stone tracery forming three semicircular headed lights with a large roundel light above. Internal evidence also shows that the lower sections of the chancel gable each has a large ‘multi-foil’ window. The lower sections of the main gable each has a high level semicircular headed window.

All sections of the roof are slated with ventilation ‘fleches’ to the ridge of the main section of the roof and skylights to the lower sections to NW and SE.

Historical information

This church was built in 1879-80 to designs by Timothy Hevey. Hevey died shortly before work commenced on site and the construction was overseen by his partner Mortimer H. Thompson. The building cost around £12,000 and was opened for services before work was completed, the spire added some months after.

The church was built in response to the growth in the Catholic population within the docks area and was also attended to act as a place of worship for visiting sailors. It replaced a large shed which had been used by the local congregation since 1872. The shed itself had acted as a chapel of ease for St Patrick’s Church in Donegall Street, but by the later 1870s the numbers of worshippers having outgrown the shed, the new parish of St Joseph was created and the new church built. During the construction of the new building, services were held in former flax spinning mill in Rowan Street.

Major changes were carried out to the mid 20th century, with the stained glass replaced in 1959 and the original high altar (designed, incidentally, by James Pearce of Dublin- the father of 1916 Rising leader P. H. Pearse), and the whole interior refurbished in 1961-62 under the supervision of architects McLean & Forte.

The shift of population away from the docks area in the latter half of the 20th century lead to a gradual decline in worshippers attending St Joseph’s. In February 2001 the church was closed.

References- Primary sources
1 Fred Heatley, ‘St Joseph’s centenary 1872-1972: The story of a dockside parish’ (Belfast, 1972)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
E. Spatial Organisation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Fine two storey French Gothic style RC Church of 1879-80 by Timothy Hevey, set within a terrace of warehouses on the SW side of Prince’s Dock Street. To the rear of the church (and facing on to Pilot Street) is the church rectory house.