Sheringham - St Joseph Roman Catholic Church

St Joseph Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church of St Joseph, on Cromer Road was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. In 1901 a donation of over £3,000 by Catherine Deterding, the wife of the managing director and founder of the Shell Oil Company, enabled the purchase of land around an existing chapel to build a new church. Work began in 1902 and the first section, St Joseph's chapel was completed in 1908. In 1910 the second section opened, which comprises the sanctuary, nave and the porch. Later the church was completed by extending the nave and adding a new porch. The complete building was consecrated on 25 March 1935. From the outside it is possible to see the join between the northern two-thirds opened in 1910, and the southern extension completed in 1935. This large red-brick church towers over its neighbours. The north end, (the liturgical east), has a high rose window, while each long side is pierced by three vast Perpendicular-style windows. The church is entered through a porch and into a narthex on the south west corner of the building. Behind a grilled area to the east there is a large framed icon of the Blessed Virgin. Inside the church the height and narrowness emphasizes the arcades which are also of a good height and have arches of alternate sizes. The décor is a mixture of both the arts and crafts movement and industrial Gothic, a signature of Gibert Scott’s style. The font is a replica the seven sacraments font at Little Walsingham.There are some good pieces of early 20th century devotional art much of which was imported from the studio and workshop of Ferdinand Stuflesser in the Austrian Tyrol. There is a rood screen above the entrance to the sanctuary. The Stations of the Cross, ordered from Stuflesser, spent the First World War in the hold of a German freighter impounded at Genoa. In September 2008, Father Denys Lloyd arrived as the successor to Father Peter Brown, who retired to Wells-next-the-Sea.