The more recent church of St Joseph the Worker, the one from which the parish takes its name, is a multipurpose design incorporating the church and the presbytery. Prior to 1955, when Mass began to be celebrated in the former Blackburn Aircraft Corporation Hostel on Moor Lane, parishioners in Sherburn in Elmet had to travel to Scarthingwell for Sunday Mass. In 1963, the Mass centre moved to the Old Courthouse and four years later an old cinema was converted into a chapel and dedicated to St Joseph in 1967. However, this soon proved unfit for purpose and the current church has been at the heart of the parish since it opened in 1984.
