Ifield Quaker Meeting House, Ifield, West Sussex

Summary

Quaker Meeting House built in 1676; kitchen and toilets were added in the C20.

Description

Quaker Meeting House built in 1676; kitchen and toilets were added in the C20.

MATERIALS: walls are of squared and tooled Sussex stone, roof of Horsham stone, brick chimneystack.

PLAN: oblong plan.

EXTERIOR: the meeting house has two storeys and the main elevation faces south-east. There are two half-hipped gables each to the south and north, with a brick chimneystack at the south-west. The Horsham stone appears to be laid in diminishing courses on the roof, a local vernacular tradition. A chamfered plinth runs around the base of the building. The south elevation has rusticated quoins to the corners and around the entrance. The lintel of the entrance door is inscribed ‘1676’, while some of the right-hand quoins have inscriptions thought to note the admission of new members: ‘16 HE 84’, ’16 AH 78’, and ’16 IK 76’. All windows have flat-arched heads. The leaded windows on either side of the entrance are of three-lights with timber transoms. Above them, in the gables, are small two-light leaded windows. Below the valley between the two gables is a lead hopper decorated with oak leaves. The side (north-east) elevation has two small high-level windows, leaded and of two-lights each. The rear (north-west) elevation is similar to the front with one large window. The off-centre rear entrance (with a divided, nail-studded door with a shelf) is now an internal door inside the lean-to brick extension of 1957.

INTERIOR: the interior is divided into two spaces by a timber screen of 1822 with sash shutters. The space formerly used for the women’s business meeting (now the library) is to the left (west), while the main meeting room is to the east. Both rooms have unpainted dado panelling, timber floors and fixed benches against the walls. The west room has a corner fireplace and a timber-framed west wall. The staircase is in the north-west corner.

A large chamfered post with ogee-braces in the meeting room supports the ceiling. The elders’ and ministers’ stand on a dais is against the north-east wall of the meeting room. The rear extension contains a kitchen and toilets and there are three attic rooms and a store room above converted to flats.

History

The Quaker movement emerged out of a period of religious and political turmoil in the mid-C17. Its main protagonist, George Fox, openly rejected traditional religious doctrine, instead promoting the theory that all people could have a direct relationship with God, without dependence on sermonising ministers, nor the necessity of consecrated places of worship. Fox, originally from Leicestershire, claimed the Holy Spirit was within each person, and from 1647 travelled the country as an itinerant preacher. 1652 was pivotal in his campaign; after a vision on Pendle Hill, Lancashire, Fox was moved to visit Firbank Fell, Cumbria, where he delivered a rousing, three-hour speech to an assembly of 1000 people, and recruited numerous converts. The Quakers, formally named the Religious Society of Friends, was thus established.

Fox asserted that no one place was holier than another, and in their early days, the new congregations often met for silent worship at outdoor locations; the use of members’ houses, barns, and other secular premises followed. Persecution of Nonconformists proliferated in the period, with Quakers suffering disproportionately. The Quaker Act of 1662, and the Conventicle Act of 1664, forbade their meetings, though they continued in defiance, and a number of meeting houses date from this early period. Broad Campden, Gloucestershire, came into Quaker use in 1663 and is the earliest meeting house in Britain, although it was out of use from 1871 to 1961. The meeting house at Hertford, 1670, is the oldest to be purpose built. The Act of Toleration, passed in 1689, was one of several steps towards freedom of worship outside the established church, and thereafter meeting houses began to make their mark on the landscape.

Quaker meeting houses are generally characterised by simplicity of design, both externally and internally, reflecting the form of worship they were designed to accommodate. The earliest purpose-built meeting houses were built by local craftsmen following regional traditions and were on a domestic scale, frequently resembling vernacular houses; at the same time, a number of older buildings were converted to Quaker use. From the first, most meeting houses shared certain characteristics, containing a well-lit meeting hall with a simple arrangement of seating. In time a raised stand became common behind the bench for the Elders, so that traveling ministers could be better heard. Where possible, a meeting house would provide separate accommodation for the women’s business meetings, and early meeting houses may retain a timber screen, allowing the separation (and combination) of spaces for business and worship. In general, the meeting house will have little or no decoration or enrichment, with joinery frequently left unpainted.

Throughout the C18 and early C19 many new meeting houses were built, or earlier buildings remodelled, with ‘polite’, Classically-informed designs appearing, reflecting architectural trends more widely. However, the buildings were generally of modest size and with minimal ornament, although examples in urban settings tended to be more architecturally ambitious. After 1800, it became more common for meeting houses to be designed by an architect or surveyor. The Victorian and Edwardian periods saw greater stylistic eclecticism, though the Gothic Revival associated with the Established Church was not embraced; on the other hand, Arts and Crafts principles had much in common with those of the Quakers, and a number of meeting houses show the influence of that movement.

The C20 saw changes in the way meeting houses were used which influenced their design and layout. In 1896 it was decided to unite men’s and women’s business, so separate rooms were no longer needed, whilst from the mid-1920s ministers were not recorded, and consequently stands were rarely provided in new buildings. Seating was therefore rearranged without reference to the stand, with moveable chairs set in concentric circles becoming the norm in smaller meeting houses. By the interwar years, there was a shift towards more flexible internal planning, together with the provision of additional rooms for purposes other than worship, reflecting the meeting house’s community role – the need for greater contact with other Christians and a more active contribution within the wider world had been an increasing concern since the 1890s. Traditional styles continued to be favoured, from grander Classical buildings in urban centres to local examples in domestic neo-Georgian. The work of the prolific Hubert Lidbetter, longtime Surveyor to the Six Weeks Meeting, demonstrates a range from the solid Classicism of Friends House, London (1924-27) to the more contemporary style of the Sheffield meeting house of 1964 (now in alternative use). In the post-war period, a small number of Quaker buildings in more emphatically modern styles were built; examples include the meeting house at Heswall, Merseyside, 1963 by Beech and Thomas, and buildings by Trevor Dannatt, of which the Blackheath Quaker Meeting House is one.

The meeting house at Ifield traces its origins to a meeting held in 1655 by George Fox and Alexander Parker at Richard Bonwicke’s house. On 24 June 1674, the leasehold of the site of a house known as Clerksham was bought from the blacksmith and Quaker, Robert Robinson for £60. This was the hall house now known as the Meeting House Cottage and The Old Forge which was built in about 1475 (listed at Grade II*). The site also had a blacksmith’s shop, a garden and an orchard. The burial ground is said to have been used first in 1659, which predates the acquisition of the site.

The present meeting house was built just beside the cottage in 1675-6 at a cost of £250. The stone is said to have come from Slaugham Place (built between 1570 and 1610) although it is not clear if this was in sufficient disrepair in the 1670s for materials to be sold off. William Penn is known to have visited the meeting house for monthly business meetings and to preach.

In 1822, a shuttered partition was installed to create a separate room for the women’s business meeting and in 1837, Elizabeth Fry visited the meeting. In 1953 repairs were made to the roof timbers and the panelling and in 1960-2, Hubert Lidbetter made improvements which may have included the lean-to rear extension (marked with ‘1957’ on Butler’s plan (1999, figure 1)). In 1970, the attic rooms in the meeting house were converted into flats and in 2010, the kitchen was enlarged, and an accessible toilet installed.

The enclosed burial ground is located to the east of the meeting house, immediately east of the garden. It contains about 56 headstones of the form typical for Quaker burial grounds, dating from the C19 and C20. It is now closed apart from the burial of ashes. Notable people buried here include Sarah Robinson who set up the first free school in Crawley in 1852 and the Cheal family who were famous nurserymen. There is also a row of plaques commemorating the burial of ashes.

In front (south) of the meeting house is an C18 mounting block of brick and stone (listed at Grade II).

Reasons for Listing

Ifield Quaker Meeting House, built in 1676 with later extensions, is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* one of the earliest purpose-built Quaker Meeting Houses in the country, the practices of the Quakers are evident in the structure, including through its lack of ornamentation, its movable dividing screen, and the arrangement of the seating.

Historic interest:

* the meeting house has associations with William Penn and Eizabeth Fry who are known to have visited;

* it has strong associations with prominent local Quakers families, including the Cheal and Robinson families, all of whom were important locally;

* for its association with the adjacent and contemporary burial ground.

Group value:

* with Meeting House Cottage (Grade II*) and the Mounting Block in its forecourt (Grade II).

External Links

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