Friends House, and Drayton House, with walls, railings, and garden to east, Bloomsbury, London

Summary

Quaker meeting house with central offices and library of the Quakers in Britain, built in 1924-8 in neo-Georgian style to the design of Hubert Lidbetter. The builders were Messrs Grace & Marsh of Croydon. The building incorporates Drayton House, a separate lettable accommodation block.

Description

Quaker meeting house with central offices and library of the Society of Friends, built in 1924-8 in neo-Georgian style to the design of Hubert Lidbetter. The builders were Messrs Grace & Marsh of Croydon. The building incorporates Drayton House, a separate lettable accommodation block.

MATERIALS: steel construction sheathed in grey Luton brick laid in English bond with Portland stone dressings and basement. The building retains its original wooden sash windows, with metal-framed windows to central block of the rear elevation. The external timber doors are also original.

PLAN: the building is a long rectangular block, set on an east/west alignment, composed of three sections, each roughly square. The main elevation is to the Euston Road to the north, and the garden is in line with the building to the east. At the centre is the meeting house block, containing the full-height large meeting house, now (2020) known as ‘The Light’, surrounded by walkways to north, west and east, with the area formerly containing the small meeting room to the south. The north cloister is entered through a portico, accessed from Euston Road to the north. This central block has stairs at each corner. The administrative block to the east is entered from the garden to the east, which leads into the stair hall, with the library to the south-east and the bookshop/café to the north-east. In the western part of this central block is the square courtyard, surrounded by walkways, with former offices, now (2020) bookshop, to the north, and committee rooms to the south, with offices above. The western block, Drayton House, is entered from Gordon Street, to the west.

EXTERIOR: the building is of three storeys, basement and attic with a flat roof behind a parapet. There is a deep moulded stone cornice beneath the attic, and the corners of the building are marked by quoins represented by paired recessed brick courses. Original incised lettering to the stonework identifies the building itself (‘FRIENDS HOUSE’) to the pilasters of the north portico, with an arrow directing visitors to the ‘CENTRAL OFFICES’ to the east, and ‘DRAYTON HOUSE’ announced on the pilasters of the eastern portico. The long principal elevation to the north has a central frontispiece containing a tetrastyle Doric portico in antis rising through three storeys, with flanking stone bays framed by pilasters. There are three doorways between the columns, of equal stature, with fasces above the architrave; the narrower architraves to the outer bays are elongated to include a fanlight beneath the fasces, having a window with a stepped surround above. On either side of the portico are ten bays of flat-arched six-over six sash windows. In the penultimate bays, the central window has a stepped stone architrave with a projecting iron balcony; below is a round-headed doorway with an elongated surround and keystone, and above is a keyed roundel. The west and east elevations each have a central distyle portico in antis, with a window above the doorway, and five bays to either side. On the south elevation, the central seven bays, representing the meeting house block, are set forward, the internal arrangement of the formerly full-height small meeting house with stairs to either side providing access at three levels producing a distinct frontage within the wider elevation. The three central bays – each with a tall, round-headed window – mark the extent of the former small meeting house, flanked by slightly recessed bays – each having a lunette opening with an elongated surround and keystone to the ground floor, a tripartite second-floor window, and an intermediate small vertical window – flanked in turn by entrance bays with round-headed windows apparently resting on basement door openings. To the first floor of this central section are small square casement windows in stone frames, formerly the clerestory to the small meeting house. To either side of the central section are ten bays, as on the front elevation, the penultimate bays having a central window with a stepped stone architrave and a stone balcony, and a keyed roundel above.

To the east of the building is a wide stone terrace, with steps to the north and south, enclosed by a new stone wall and original stone benches to the east, flanking a long stone ramp leading eastwards through the garden. To either side new dwarf stone walls enclose lawns and beds.

INTERIOR: the central portico precedes the entrance foyer to the large meeting house. This area, together with the wide corridors to east and west of the large meeting room, remains largely intact, with features including stone dados, and pilasters with shallow stepped panels, as well as door and radiator surrounds. The coffered ceilings retain original bronze lamps. The current appearance of the large meeting house at the centre of the building, now (2020) known as ‘The Light’, is the result of the 2015 renovation, which saw the installation of a ceiling of stepped aluminium rising to a large skylight, with tiers of fixed seating on all sides, within the existing Classical framework of the room. Surviving original features include pilasters to the corners of the room, supporting moulded beams; panelling to ground-floor level, the dais to the north, and timber doors and doorcases, with doorkeeper’s seats. The former small meeting house to the south has been divided horizontally, with small rooms at ground-floor level, and a large first-floor room. The stairs at each corner of this block are of stone-lined Imperial form to first-floor level, and open-well with painted metal balustrades at the upper levels.

The main entrance to Friends House to the east leads to an entrance hall lined with polished Leckhampton stone, beneath a deeply coffered ceiling, with enclosed stairs on either side; brass rail has been added to the low stone wall at first-floor level. An opening framed by Doric columns leads to the cloister (the term used by Lidbetter in his plans) surrounding the courtyard to the east, which has stone door and radiator surrounds and polished terrazzo flooring. The stone-paved courtyard (‘meeting house yard’ in early plans), is accessed from the cloister by original folding glazed timber doors, filling wide openings. The courtyard has a central circular fountain of brick with a stone coping (intended to counteract noise from the Euston Road), and is overlooked by terraces accessed from the first floor to west and east, with iron balustrades. To the east, the stair tower is expressed by a giant aedicule containing the doorway from the entrance hall, with a canted bay window set between the pilasters above a stone clock, and a semi-circular window above the frieze. In the south-east corner of the building is the double-height library, with a coffered ceiling. The library is fitted with original double-height bookcases – now somewhat modified – divided into reading bays, with geometric timber balustrades to the upper section. In the south-east corner of the building is the original book centre, its ceiling defined by axial beams with coving, the space now combined with the former central offices along the southern range to form a café and bookshop. At the west end of the former office space is a small C21 meeting room, designed by Theis and Khan. Along the north range of this section are the former committee rooms. A single space was originally divided into three equal parts by folding panelled timber doors, one set of doors has now been repositioned. The upper floors at the east end of the building contain offices and meeting rooms and now have a modern character, though some original fittings survive, including panelled and glazed doors. The stair serving the upper levels is at the west side of the east range, having a painted metal balustrade with a moulded timber rail. In many places modifications have been made to the interior faces of external walls, for insulation purposes. The third floor warden’s flat, brought into office use in about 2006, retains small brick fire surrounds, painted panelled doors and tiled window cills. The basement contains archive storage to the north, and a restaurant area to the south, originally designated as a tea room, and recently refurbished.

The interior of Drayton House was not inspected, but the entrance hall and stair to the east of the building are stone lined, with plain shallow panels, the open-well stair rising around a lift shaft. There are glazed timber double doors to north and south, as found in the main part of the building.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: there are original geometric railings set on low stone walls defining the garden to north and south, with gates at each corner. Railings on low walls also enclose the basement on the west and east elevations, and along the western section of the south elevation; to the eastern section of the south elevation, the basement is enclosed by a stone wall.

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. The year 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, and that 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 facing a raised stand for the minsters and elders. 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 ways 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 inter-war 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 architectural styles continued to be favoured throughout the greater part of the C20, the range being well represented by the work of Hubert Lidbetter, architect of Friends House, although in the post-war period a small number of Quaker buildings in more emphatically modern styles were built.

The predecessor of Friends House as the administrative centre of the Society of Friends was Devonshire House, Bishopsgate. In 1666, following the Fire of London the Society of Friends rented rooms for meeting for worship in the former London home of the Cavendish family, and in 1678 leased part of the adjoining ground, where a new meeting house was built. Separate meeting houses for men and women were built in the 1790s and further extended during the C18 and C19. Used by a local meeting, the site also served the needs of the Quarterly and the Yearly Meeting (the Yearly Meetings were business meetings, hence the requirement for separate meeting houses in the late C18), becoming the principal London offices of the Religious Society of Friends. By 1911, the accommodation in Devonshire House had become unsatisfactory, being cramped and poorly lit and ventilated. After much debate, a newly-appointed Special Premises Committee decided in favour of moving to a new site. The Bishopsgate site was eventually sold in 1925, the buildings being demolished in 1927. The search for a new site began in 1914, focusing on the Bloomsbury area due to its convenient transport connections. In 1923 the freehold of Endsleigh Gardens came on the market; these private gardens on the south side of Euston Road, opposite Euston Station, had originally part of the Duke of Bedford’s Estate, by 1923 they were owned by Sir Alfred Butt, a financier, theatre-owner and Conservative Member of Parliament, who sold them to the Society of Friends for £45,000. The eastern third of the site was subsequently sold to raise money for the construction of the new building. The purchaser agreed to maintain a small garden between the projected buildings jointly with Friends but the planned temperance hotel failed to materialise. In return for permission to bring the building line forward by 20 feet, a 30-foot wide strip of land had to be surrendered for the widening of Euston Road by the London County Council.

In 1923, five Quaker architects were invited to submit outline plans in a limited competition, namely Hubert Lidbetter, Peter R Allison, C Ernest Ellcock, Ralph Thorp and Frederick Rowntree. The architect William Curtis Green, who in 1908 had designed the Quaker adult school in Croydon, was appointed assessor. The brief asked for a large meeting room for 1500 people for the Yearly Meeting, a small meeting room for 200 to 300, a library with strong rooms for archives – Friends House is home to the large central Quaker archive – and offices for the many Quaker organisations and committees. A substantial part of the building was to be rented commercially to provide a regular income to cover maintenance. Green selected Lidbetter’s design as offering the most practical solution to the brief. Lidbetter’s neo-Georgian design divided the building into three blocks: an administration block to the east, with offices and committee rooms for Quaker staff, the library and a restaurant; a central block with space for two meeting houses, and lastly, a block at the west end (named Drayton House after George Fox’s birthplace), which was to be commercially let. All three parts had separate external entrances but were linked by internal corridors. Both outer blocks had courtyards; that to the east was designed as a gathering place for Friends. The roof was designed for a future mansard extension. The building contract was awarded to Messrs Grace & Marsh of Croydon, whose founding partners were Quakers. The interior wood panelling and much of the furniture were provided by another Friend, Malcolm Sparks of Willesden; several pieces of furniture designed by Sparks for the building remain, including a large table originally designed for the small meeting house. Work started in July 1924, and by 9 January 1926, most of the offices in Friends House were ready for occupation. The library and bookshop were completed by the end of March 1926. The Large Meeting House was completed in late 1926 and the first Yearly Meeting held there in May 1927. This space was described by the Architectural Review as ‘perhaps Mr Lidbetter’s outstanding success’, providing space for more than 1,500 people to sit within the tiered ground floor and three galleries. Drayton House was completed last, in 1928. The total cost of the building, excluding the cost of buying the site, was £191,262. The plainness and simplicity typical of Quaker values made an impression on most architectural critics, with the Architectural Review of October 1927 describing it as: ‘eminently Quakerly … [it] unites common sense with just so much relief from absolute plainness as gives pleasure to the eye’. The building won the RIBA bronze medal in 1927 for the best building erected in London that year.

Since its completion, Friends House has received a number of alterations. In 1941, during the Second World War, the south-east corner suffered a direct hit, the damage being repaired. Between 1975 and 1980 a number of alterations were made, including the installation of new lifts, improvements to the library and archive spaces, and the removal of the central offices from the ground to the first floor, and during the 1980s the first- and second-floor offices were remodelled. In 1986-7 the full-height Small Meeting House was subdivided horizontally to create three meeting rooms on the ground floor and a new small meeting room above, the architect being Richard Betham and Associates. The 1990s saw a comprehensive refurbishment. The bookshop was adapted and extended into former office space to include a café in 2006-9, and at the same time some of the offices and facilities on the upper floors redesigned by Theis and Khan. In 2015 the Large Meeting House (renamed ‘The Light’) was comprehensively refurbished by John McAslan & Partners (with James Turrell involved in early plans for the scheme), a suspended ceiling inserted in 1983 over the original coffered roof being replaced by a pyramidal structure of stepped aluminium, and new seating installed, though many original features were retained; the work won a 2015 RIBA London Award. The space is now used for Yearly Meetings as well as being hired for other events. The George Fox Room on the second floor of the building is now regularly used for Meetings for Worship. In 2016 the garden to the east of the building was re-landscaped and replanted by Wendy Price of Headington Local Meeting together with Melissa Jolly of John McAslan & Partners.

Friends House continues in use as the administrative centre of the Society of Friends. Drayton House currently accommodates University College London’s Department of Economics and the Economic & Social Research Council Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution.

Hubert Lidbetter (1885-1966) was the C20’s most prolific architect of Quaker meeting houses, his career spanning the 1920s to the 1960s. A Quaker himself, Lidbetter trained in the office of the established Quaker architect Frederick Rowntree (1860-1927). His career took off when he won the competition for Friends House in 1923; Lidbetter became Surveyor to the Six Weeks Meeting in 1935 (which administers Quaker property in the Greater London area), holding the post until 1957. Lidbetter was experienced in the sympathetic restoration of old buildings, and as Surveyor he worked on historic meeting houses, as well as building new ones. He also published a significant article on Quaker architecture (‘Quaker Meeting Houses 1670-1850’, Architectural Review, April 1946) and the first book devoted to the subject (‘The Friends Meeting House’, 1961). Lidbetter designed at least 16 new meeting houses, ten being built after he was joined in practice by his son Martin in 1950. Of Lidbetter’s large urban meeting houses, those built during the interwar period are the Classical tradition – Friends House, London (1924-27, listed at Grade II) and Bull Street, Birmingham (1931-33) – whilst Liverpool (1941, demolished) and Sheffield (1964, no longer in Quaker use) showed the influence of modernism. However, more typical of his work was the domestic neo-Georgian character of his numerous smaller meeting houses, mainly in and around London; the meeting house at Croydon (1956, listed at Grade II) is Arts and Crafts in inspiration. Martin Lidbetter (1914-92) succeeded to his father’s post, continuing the practice into the 1970s. Besides designing meeting houses, the practice also undertook work for Quaker schools, and commissions for the Methodist and Congregational churches, the Baptists, and the Salvation Army, as well as designing office buildings (including the listed former National Union of General and Municipal Workers building of 1953-7, now Bentham House, listed at Grade II, which stands a short distance to the east of Friends House) and houses for private clients and local authorities.

Reasons for Listing

Friends House, and Drayton House, with the walls, railings, and garden to east, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Historic interest:

* as the administrative centre of the Quakers in Britain, including the meeting house for Yearly Meeting, and the Quaker library and archive.

Architectural interest:

* for its distinguished neo-Georgian design, by the notable Quaker architect, Hubert Lidbetter;
* the monumental building deftly and elegantly combines the varied elements required in a unique multi-functional complex;
* for the considered use of materials, with restrained detailing, both externally and internally;
* the building retains numerous original fixtures and fittings, including panelled and glazed doors, bronze lamps, some panelling, and fitted bookcases, as well as its original sash windows;
* the stone garden walls and benches, together with the site’s walls and railings, enhance the wider site.

Group value:
* with the two listed late-C19 Classical lodges belonging to Euston Station, opposite, and with 30 Euston Square, Beresford Pite’s office building of 1906-8, listed at Grade II*. Bentham House, the former headquarters of the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, built in 1953-7 to the designs of Hubert and Martin Lidbetter and listed at Grade II, stands a short distance to the east.

External Links

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