Painswick Quaker Meeting House, Painswick, Gloucestershire

Summary

Quaker Meeting House built in 1706, with modifications in 1793-4.

Description

Quaker Meeting House built in 1706, with modifications in 1793-4.

MATERIALS: squared limestone ashlar, with a steep slated roof, presumably replacing original stone slates.

PLAN: rectangular plan.

EXTERIOR: the meeting house consists of a single room on the ground floor, with upper rooms used variously as a schoolroom, to accommodate travelling ministers and for women’s business meetings.

The original entrance was placed centrally on the south elevation. The date 1706 is inscribed in the cambered stone lintel over the original entrance door, now blocked, on the south side of the building. Since 1794 the building has been entered from the east gable end, the entrance with a moulded surround and slightly peaked head under a gabled hood supported on long wooden brackets. A pair of early (possibly 1706 reused) thickly ledged and boarded doors with big iron strap hinges lead into an entrance lobby. Above this, two mullioned and transomed timber casement windows with rectangular panes are set high in the gable, under a continuous drip moulding. The gables are topped by square chimney stacks, each with moulded cappings.

The south front has the blocked central doorway, and is flanked by two large C18 sash windows, each of twelve panes over twelve, with timber lintels. The west elevation has two six-over-six sash windows to the first floor, and a low WC addition at ground-floor level built in 2013. The north elevation is plain with a store at its north-western corner.

INTERIOR: the entrance lobby has a late C18 unpainted panelled partition with fixed shutters and a stair to the first floor. A small modern kitchenette has been inserted into the lobby. The main meeting room measures 9.06 by 7.16m and has heavy chamfered and stopped beams to a six-compartment ceiling. There is a short raised stand at the west end with a panelled front, backed by a plain deal boarded dado. A vertical boarded dado around the rest of the space is painted, and ramps up over the unpainted dado at the west end. The walls and ceiling are plastered, the floor finish of modern pine boarding. Above the stand, the ghost of a blocked window can be discerned.

The late C18 stair in the entrance lobby is of unpainted timber with closed string, stick balusters, turned newels and moulded handrails. It leads up to the first floor, which has a wide boarded floor, fireplace and two windows at each end. It has a kitchen, WC and a library/meeting room.

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.

In 1658, Friends in the Painswick area were given a burial ground (Grade II) at Dell Farm off Beech Lane by Thomas Loveday, member of a prominent local family. Ten members of the Loveday family were buried here between 1681 and 1729. This burial ground remained in use until 1819. It is likely that a small meeting house was also built here; a simple stone structure once existed against the boundary wall, later known as ‘the chapel’ and used for agricultural purposes. It was demolished in 1978 although the burial ground survives (listed Grade II).

The present meeting house in Vicarage Street was built in 1705-6, again on land given by Thomas Loveday. It is approximately 1km to the north-west of the burial ground at Dell Farm. Painswick Quaker Meeting House consisted of a single room on the ground floor, with upper rooms used variously as a schoolroom, to accommodate travelling ministers and for women’s business meetings. Major repairs and modifications took place in 1793-4 with a new stair to the upper room and enclosing partition. It is likely that the entrance was moved to the front (gable) end at this time and most of the windows sashed.

As at many meetings, attendance fell in the C19 in competition with Methodism and other expressions of nonconformity. For much of the period between 1815 and 1953 the building was used by the YMCA, Bible study groups and others, and in 1907 the building was leased to the Plymouth Brethren. They remained tenants until 1953, when the Quaker meeting was re-established. In 2013, the western addition on the ground floor was rebuilt replacing a previous structure of similar size, to provide an accessible WC and kitchenette and the first-floor library, kitchen, cloakroom and WC were refurbished.

The meeting house is sited within a garden/former burial area known as Meeting House Court, which is bounded by a dry stone wall. The boundary walls were repaired in 2014 and the entrance furnished with new iron gates and the gardens were re-landscaped. The garden contains 25 recorded burials ranging in date from 1770 to 1886. There are nine headstones ranging in date from 1809 to 1886 and these have been relocated to the perimeter.

Reasons for Listing

Painswick Quaker Meeting House of 1706 with later extensions, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* embodying the modest simplicity of Quaker meeting houses, the building retains its C18 character with the original form and use of the meeting house remaining legible.

Historic interest:

* as a purpose-built early C18 Quaker meeting house which has a relatively complete and little altered interior;

* it has strong associations with prominent local Quakers such as Thomas Loveday;

* for its association with the attached burial ground.

Group value:

* with the adjacent Dover House and Dover Cottage (Grade II*) and close proximity to a number of Grade II-listed buildings along Vicarage Street.

External Links

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