Portishead Quaker Meeting House, Portishead, North Somerset

Summary

Quaker Meeting House, converted from a C17 house in around 1670. C19 and C20 alterations and additions.

Description

Quaker Meeting House, converted from a C17 house in around 1670. C19 and C20 alterations and additions.

MATERIALS: the meeting house is built of local rubble stone; the west elevation is lime-washed. It has a thatched roof and the brick stack has been rendered. The roofs to the mid-C19 additions are covered in slate tiles.

PLAN: the single-storey meeting house is rectangular on plan. The entrance to the meeting house has been relocated from the west elevation to the north, and attached to the north end is a single-storey mid-C19 addition which forms an entrance lobby and kitchen. To the left-hand end of the west elevation is a mid-C19 (altered in the late C20) single-storey lean-to toilet block.

EXTERIOR: the single-storey building has a steeply pitched roof with raised gables with interlocking coping stones. The former entrance door to the centre of the west elevation has been partially blocked and a C20 three-light, timber mullion window inserted. The C19 three-light window to the right has a central iron casement. Both windows have leaded lights and are beneath C19 brick segmental heads. The window to the left has been blocked by the mid-C19 addition which has a C20 panelled door to its south side.

The north gable has an end stack, and to its right is a rectangular opening covered with netting. At ground floor level, extending to the west is a single-storey wall with a coped parapet and a blocked window with stone hoodmould. Attached to the north gable end is a single-storey addition with gabled parapet walls, and to its west end is a pair of three-panel entrance doors set within a shallow projection with a stone cornice. To the north and east elevation of this addition are a C19 two and three-light timber window, respectively, with a metal casement and leaded lights. Both are set beneath stone hoodmoulds. There is a small square timber window to the south wall.

The east elevation of the C17 building has, set beneath a stone lintel, an C18, three-light timber mullion window with chamfered mullions, leaded lights and an iron casement.

INTERIOR: at the north end of the meeting house is the mid-C19 lobby, with kitchen beyond. The windows here and in the meeting room have splayed reveals. The internal wall that divides the lobby from the kitchen has been reconfigured in the late C20, and an internal window with leaded lights inserted. To the south wall is a C19 fireplace. To the left of this is a cupboard with a six-panel door with raised and fielded panels. The cupboard door, as well as the entrance door to the lobby and the meeting room, have bolection moulded architraves.

The meeting room is accessed from the north end through a wide six-panel early C19 door with its original door furniture; the top two panels have been replaced with glazing. To the north wall is a blocked fireplace. The floor has timber floorboards, the walls and ceiling are plastered and, around the perimeter of the room, is a dado rail. To the south end is a dais with raised and fielded panelling to dado height that ramps up behind the raised elders' bench; there are fixed pine benches to either side with shaped supporting brackets. Towards the north side of the dais is a central panelled screen, shielding the elders' bench, with a bench seat in front. To either side are low sections of panelled screen that separate the dais from the rest of the meeting room.

The pegged roof structure has a diagonally-set ridge piece, and the three intermediate elm trusses have principal rafters, staggered butt-purlins, and collars. There has been some renewal of timbers and the ceiling joists appear to be C20.

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 member’s 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.

By 1658 a meeting had been established in Portishead with Friends gathering in private houses. In 1668, as recorded in the minutes of a monthly meeting held at Keynsham, Thomas Hodds gifted a house to serve as a permanent meeting house and burial ground. The Friends’ Book of Deeds (1701) also states that land on the road from Portishead to Clevedon was given by William Powell. These two pieces of evidence are thought to refer to the site of the present meeting house, which was adapted from an existing cottage belonging to Thomas Hodds in around 1670. The building went on to survive the early years of Quaker persecution, when one of their number, Thomas Parsons, died in jail following his arrest in 1671, and has remained in continued use.

The burial ground is to the west of the meeting house and the site as a whole is defined by rubble stone boundary walls. The earliest grave marker dated 1687 is now located in the meeting house.

There is evidence that the meeting house originally had an upper floor, as suggested by internal scarring at first-floor height to the east wall, and the presence of a small opening in the north gable. The pine panelling, screens and benches at the south end of the meeting room appear to be C18. Further alterations to the building occurred in the C19 with the relocation of the entrance from the long west elevation, where it overlooked the burial ground, to the north gable end; a window has since been installed in the former west doorway. In the mid-C19 the single-storey entrance lobby was added to the north elevation, and a further single-storey building added to the left-hand side of the west elevation; this was altered, and partially rebuilt in the late C20 when its roof was altered from a flat roof to a lean-to roof. There is an additional, late C20 single-storey addition to the right-hand side of the west elevation.

In 1973-4 a detached classroom block was built in the burial ground.

Reasons for Listing

Portishead Quaker Meeting House is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* despite changes, the building remains a well-preserved example of a mid-C17 meeting house that reflects the local vernacular building traditions;
* the interior retains its C18 elders’ stand, and its single-cell plan, although the entrance has been relocated;
* the historic development of the building is readable in the building fabric and clearly illustrates how the building has evolved to accommodate changes in Quaker worship.

Historic interest:

* as one of the earliest examples of a meeting house, established in the mid-C17 in an existing house, prior to the Act of Toleration (1689);
* for representing the determination of a group of Portishead Quakers in establishing a dedicated meeting house in the face of persecution.

External Links

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