St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, Leigh

St Joseph's Church
St Joseph's Church
Basic information
Location	Bedford, Leigh, Greater Manchester, England
Affiliation	Roman Catholic
Country	United Kingdom
Year consecrated	1855
Ecclesiastical or organizational status	Active
Architectural description
Architect(s)	Joseph Hansom
Architectural type	Church
Architectural style	Gothic Revival
Completed	1855, tower 1878
Materials	Sandstone

St Joseph's Church is an active Roman Catholic church on Chapel Street in Bedford, Leigh in Greater Manchester, England. It is in the parish of St Edmund Arrowsmith. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade II listed building.

After the Reformation when the Church of England left the Catholic Church several recussant families in Leigh kept the 'Old Faith'. Mass was heard in secret at Bedford Hall, Hopecarr and Hall House. Ambrose Barlow carried out priestly duties in the parish while living at Morleys Hall in Astley.

Father John Penketh, the first Jesuit priest in Bedford in 1678 was imprisoned in Lancaster. John Shaw built the old chapel from which Chapel Street is named in 1778. One of his successors, Father John Reeve who served from 1828 until 1840, built the school. The brick-built chapel was replaced by St Joseph's Church which opened on 3 May 1855. Father John Middlehurst raised funds for construction of the nave, chancel and tower base and his successor, Father James Fanning completed the tower in 1878. Among the priests to serve the parish was the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins who arrived in 1879.

The church was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Joseph Hansom and built in 1855 in hammer-dressed stone with a slate roof with fishscale bands. In plan it has a wide nave, polygonal chancel, chapels on the north and south sides, a sacristy, south porch and west tower.