St Joseph's Church, Faifley, Clydebank (Gillespie, Kidd and Coia)

Job files, images and drawings related to project

The siting of the Church of St Joseph completed the third side of the large paved square which also gave access to the Church Hall and Presbytery. The church accommodated 560 in seating on three sides of the centrally placed altar with an additional 80 seats in the Lady Chapel and the same number in the choir gallery. The remaining accommodation provided a baptistry, three confessionals, a large open sacristy with ancillaries and a narthex. The form and appearance of the building derived from the near square plan which resulted from the unusual seating arrangement and the use of high level windows between steeply sloping roofs to light the Church and especially the centrally placed sanctuary. While the sacristies were an extension of the Church space and were integrated with it, the baptistry and Lady Chapel were individually expressed and boldly attached to the body of the Church and were like the Church lit by high level windows. In contrast the sacristies had in addition to high level lighting deeply recessed coloured glazing scattered over the rear wall.

Solid travertine was used for the altars, font and the altar rails with further use of travertine for pulpit, holy water stoops etc. The seating was of solid hardwood construction and timber canopy hung over the altar.

The material has been arranged using original Gillespie Kidd and Coia project reference codes. There were 3 parts to this project: the church, the hall and the presbytery. The entire project was given the code CHCL and each separate part of the 3 parts had its own unique code, CF for the church, CHF for the hall & PF for the presbytery. In order to simplify the catalogue, the code CF has been used for the entire project. When it is clear that the material is related to one single aspect of the project the title indicates this.

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Catalogued by Tracy Wilkinson, GKC Project Archivist

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