St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church

General information

St Joseph's Church is a Roman Catholic church in the Elm Grove area of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove. It is one of eleven Roman Catholic churches in the city. The church was built in several stages, and outstanding debts meant that its official dedication did not take place until 1979. It has been listed at Grade II* by English Heritage in view of its architectural importance.HistoryElm Grove was built to connect the Lewes Road, which ran into the centre of Brighton, and Brighton Racecourse at the top of Race Hill. The road was laid out on the steeply sloping site in the 1850s, and rapid residential development occurred over the next decade. More houses were built later in the 19th century on the road itself and on streets running to the north and south, and by 1900 the area was densely populated.A Roman Catholic place of worship has existed at the bottom (west) end of Elm Grove since the late 1860s. Recent research has found that a temporary mission chapel, completed in 1869, stood on the site now occupied by St Joseph's. (Older sources suggested that the building completed in that year was the first part of the present church structure.) A local resident, Matthew Haddock, died in the 1870s; in his will he expressed a wish for a permanent church to be built to replace the mission chapel, and his wife donated £10,000 of bonds to fund this. Architect William Kedo Broder designed a tall stone building in accordance with Mrs Haddock's proposals, and the first part of the building—the sanctuary and part of the nave—was opened in May 1879. In 1880 the sanctuary was enlarged and the apse was built. Before any more of Kedo Broder's designs could be realised, he was killed in January 1881, falling from a moving train.