Sudbury Quaker Meeting House, Sudbury, Suffolk

Summary

Quaker Meeting House. Built in 1804 and extended in 1818, with later alterations including in 2012 an extension to the designs of Tricker Blackie Associates.

Description

Quaker Meeting House. Built in 1804 and extended in 1818, with later alterations including in 2012 an extension to the designs of Tricker Blackie Associates.

MATERIALS: the main meeting room is in red brick laid to Flemish bond, with plain tile roof coverings. The former women’s business meeting room is in white brick laid to Flemish bond, with slate roof coverings. The extension of 2012 includes a glazed timber portico and entrance hall.

PLAN: the single-storey meeting house is rectangular on plan in three main units, comprising from west to east the former women’s business meeting room, then the main meeting room. The entrance hall, with storage and cloakroom facilities, is to the south side.

EXTERIOR: the meeting house is situated in the Quaker burial ground on Friars Street, oriented north-west to south-east (simplified in the following description to north-south). It is in close proximity to The Red House (Grade II*) and numerous Grade II-listed buildings to both sides of Friars Street including the Walls of Burial Ground of Friends Meeting House. The main meeting room in red brick laid to Flemish bond has a half-hipped roof with plain tile coverings, whilst the former women’s business meeting room, in white brick, has a lower level hipped roof, with slate coverings.

The main elevation is to the west, comprising the glazed timber portico which provides the main entrance. From the portico, the single-storey entrance hall encloses the south elevation of the former women’s business meeting room and reaches part-way along the south elevation of the main meeting room. The main meeting room west elevation includes a window in the upper level that lights the gallery, whilst a ground-floor door in the east end of the south wall under a flat arch provides a fire exit. Its east elevation includes a sash window with side lights under a segmental arch. The north elevation of the main meeting room comprises three bays, each with a sash window, whilst the north elevation to the former women’s meeting room includes two windows lighting the kitchen and school room respectively. The north elevations form the boundary with the adjacent property.

INTERIOR: the meeting house is divided into three principal spaces. The glazed double-leaf door of the portico leads into the entrance hall with storage and cloakrooms to the south side. The former women’s business meeting room, divided into a school room and a kitchen, is entered from the hall through a newly-inserted door placed centrally in the south wall. There is an eight-over-eight-light timber sash window to either side of the door, the wall having been external.

The main meeting room is accessed via the east end of the entrance hall which opens into the ground floor space under the gallery. This space, lit by a window to the north wall, is enclosed by the plain panelled partition that rises to the gallery front above. The gallery stair to the north-west corner has a closed string with columnar newel post and stick balusters. A part-glazed double-leaf door to the centre of the partition leads into the meeting room.

The meeting room has fixed benches to the north, west, and south walls and a panelled dado that is ramped up to the Elders’ stand extending the whole width of the east wall. The Elders’ stand comprises two tiers of fixed benches with short staircases at each end. The rear bench is provided with a handrail carried by the panelled front. The front bench has handrails arranged to form a central opening, carried on posts rising from the dias.

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. Ancillary buildings erected in addition to a meeting house could include stabling and covered spaces such as a gig house; caretaker’s accommodation; or a school room or adult school.

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.

A meeting house in Sudbury was built close to the site of the present building in 1669 or 1670 by Quakers who had been meeting in the town since at least 1664. Its replacement of 1710 was reported to be in a state of disrepair by 1801. The current meeting house was built in 1804 at a cost of £606, and a women’s business meeting room was added in 1818. There is an attached burial ground to the rear.

The meeting house had a simple single-storey pedimented entrance which was enclosed in 1975 to provide new cloakrooms. This was taken down and a new, extended, structure added in 2012 to designs by James Blackie of Tricker Blackie Associates. Providing a lobby, toilets and other facilities, the extension and renovation works won an award from the Sudbury Society.

Reasons for Listing

Sudbury Quaker Meeting House, situated on Friars Street, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an early-C19 Quaker meeting house that typifies the modest nature of these buildings for worship, and which retains its essential historic form and character;
* the plan-form and the gallery, panelled partition, Elders’ stand and other historic fabric preserved in the interior provide evidence for the division of space and internal arrangements typical for earlier Quaker meeting houses.

Historic interest:

* as an early purpose-built meeting house dating to 1804 with an attached Quaker burial ground, which further illustrates the development of the meeting house type through the addition in 1818 of a women’s business meeting room.

Group value:

* with The Red House (Grade II*) and numerous Grade II-listed buildings to both sides of Friars Street including the Walls of Burial Ground of Friends Meeting House.

External Links

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