Catholic Church of St Joseph

On high ground to the S of the town, reached by a private drive off Lon Llewelyn.

Catholic church constructed 1968 to designs by Gwilym Parry Davies. The contractor was Hugh Jones and Son of Denbigh. The cost (for church and presbytery) was £25,000.

A mission in Denbigh had been established by the Jesuit Fathers in 1853 and a chapel built in 1863 on land at Bryn Sychar. This was served for many years at weekends by seminarians from St Beuno’s. Eventually it was decided that the church was too small so after fundraising a new church and presbytery were built. Dedicated to St Joseph, the church was opened in 1968 by John Petit, Bishop of Menevia.

The design of the church reflects the reforms brought about by the Second Vatican Council and it is purposefully non-traditional in its construction, materials, and layout. It was built on a square plan, but laid out with the baptistry and sanctuary aligned on a diagonal axis. It is also notable for using a hyperbolic paraboloid roof structure, a type of roof that was first developed pre-WWII but gained popularity during the 1950s and 60s and was used for structures that required a large open plan space. It offers a number of advantages over a traditionally constructed roof – speed of erection, a high-quality self-finish, and a comparatively low cost. Examples in England, like Markham Moor Services (1960-1) and St John’s church, Lincoln (1962-3), both by Sam Scorer, and the Commonwealth Institute (1962-3) are listed. In Wales the swimming pool of Wrexham Waterworld was constructed (1967-70) with a hyperbolic paraboloid roof. Its use at Denbigh could have been influenced by the roof at Wrexham. The use of this type of roof at Denbigh is only the second known example in Wales.

The use of a self-supporting thin roof structure at St Joseph allows a flexible internal space without internal support. The roof has strength from membrane tension in the form of a double layer of tongue and groove boards with timber joists in between. The clerestory strip, directly under the roof, gives the impression that the roof is floating. The roof is held down by bolts into the cavity of the walls and is anchored by large reinforced concrete buttresses at two low corners.

There have been minor alterations to the exterior (replacement of the fascia boards with uPVC) and internally there was originally a Lady Chapel separated from the narthex by a partition but the partition has been removed to create a large meeting room and refreshment area.