CATHEDRAL HISTORY
Christopher Hobbs’ design for the mosaic on the west wall of the Chapel
St Joseph – Completed Patrick Rogers The mosaics which were put up in the Chapel of St Joseph a few years ago completed the decorative work which started over a century ago. The first work to be done in the Chapel was the altar, which was completed just in time for the consecration of the Cathedral in 1910. The altar table is of veined cream pavonazzo marble from Tuscany, the source also of the altar frontal. This is of yellow Siena, inset with an exceptionally beautiful panel of Irish green marble from Lissoughter quarry near Clifden in County Galway, the whole being decorated with blue lapis lazuli from Chile together with gold mosaic tesserae. J F Bentley, architect of the Cathedral, died in 1902 and it fell to his successor, John Marshall, to undertake the early decoration in St Joseph’s, the marble merchants being Farmer & Brindley. In 1914, they also decorated the apse wall behind the altar, using grey Hymettian from near Athens inset with red Greek rosso antico, with a combination of wavy green Greek cipollino and 16
darker green verde antico below. It was then also that the gilded bronze triptych of St Joseph with the infant Christ, surmounted by the emblems of a carpenter’s trade, was installed, modelled by H C Fehr and made by Blunt & Wray. A gilt tabernacle on the altar enables the chapel to be used for the reservation of the Sacred Host when the Blessed Sacrament Chapel is unavailable and a bronze baldacchino, or canopy, above was planned by Marshall, but never made. So, by 1914, the altar and apse behind it were finished (except for the bronze baldacchino), but nothing more happened for 20 years. Then Lawrence Shattock, who had succeeded John Marshall, designed the decoration of the north wall around the window. The marble work was carried out by Fennings of Hammersmith in 1935. A beautiful purple column of fior di pesco, peach blossom marble, from Tuscany forms the centre of an arcade of little colonettes of Algerian onyx. In the background are panels Oremus
MAY 2021
