St. Joseph’s altar

The altar was unveiled and blessed in 1896.

The reredos has slim columns of dark marble at the sides of the panels of carved tracery which are backed by marble. At each corner there are small spires and a central canopy with a spire above a life-sized statue of St. Joseph, the husband of Our Blessed Lady. St. Joseph’s is holding one of his attributes, a flowering rod, reminiscent of the story of the suitors of Mary who each brought a rod to the high priest in the Temple and Joseph’s rod blossomed as a sign from heaven that he was the chosen one.

The tabernacle, with a gilt door made by Hardman & Co., is decorated with the Sacred Monogram HIS is in the centre.

The altar table is supported on slim marble columns, the front is divided into three panels, all containing sculptured lilies.

Like the other altars, the work is in Caen stone, and English and foreign marble and the carving by RL Boulton.

The six silver candlesticks have S I, St. Joseph’s monogram, on a blue enamelled background.

The adjacent stained glass windows portray in the middle his flowering rod and the outer two shows tools symbolising St. Joseph, the carpenter.

The large window above the altar shows the Lamb of God with the cruciform halo symbolizing one of the Holy Trinity and the lamb is the symbol of Christ’s sacrifice. The banner read: ‘ECCE AGNES DEI’: ‘Behold the Lamb of God’. The name given to Christ by John the Baptist “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:19).