Banbury Quaker Meeting House, Banbury, Oxfordshire

Summary

Quaker meeting house. 1681 and 1749-1751 with C19 and C20 alterations including a scheme by H Godwin Arnold, architect.

Description

Quaker meeting house. 1681 and 1749-1751 with C19 and C20 alterations including a scheme by H Godwin Arnold, architect.

MATERIALS: Hornton stone, red brick laid to English bond, Stonesfield Slate roof coverings.

PLAN: irregular plan. The east-west oriented main meeting house, rectangular on plan, is linked to the former women’s business room (also east-west oriented and rectangular on plan) by a north-south oriented corridor to its western end. A group of C19 ancillary buildings are massed to the north wall of the main meeting house, also adjoining the eastern wall of the former women’s business room.

EXTERIOR: the meeting house stands in the Quaker burial ground to the north-west corner of Horse Fair. The burial ground and buildings are enclosed to the south by the Grade II-listed boundary wall, largely obscuring the buildings from the street. The single-storey, full-height main meeting house is built in coursed Hornton stone, and has a hipped roof with Stonesfield Slate roof coverings. The main (south) front has a shallow plinth and a plain string course between the ground and first floors. This elevation is in three bays, with three two-over-two sash windows to both ground floor and the upper level, lighting the main meeting room. Each straight-headed window opening includes a dropped keystone and a stone sill. A date-stone reading 1751 is visible in the upper level between the first and second bays.

The west elevation comprises the single-storey lean-to corridor range built in red brick laid to English bond, lit by one window opening and with a doorway opening into the burial ground. The main meeting house’s other elevations are largely obscured by attached and neighbouring buildings. The entrance to the main meeting house is through the Tuscan porch standing perpendicularly to the building’s south-west corner, leading into the western corridor range. Its doorway includes a four-panel door flanked by partially-glazed sidelights, with a rectangular fanlight. The single-storey former women’s business room, which is reported to include some original fabric from 1681, is built in a mix of masonry and brickwork, with a hipped roof. It is lit by three window openings to the south elevation and two, higher, window openings to the north elevation. The single-storey ancillary buildings joining the north elevation of the main meeting house to the east elevation of the former women’s business room have shed roofs.

INTERIOR: the western corridor range includes tongue and groove panelling and a set of C19 coat hooks. The main meeting room is entered from this range through a centrally-placed doorway. The full-height room has a dado of vertical tongue and groove panelling, ramped up at the eastern end which is occupied by the Elders’ Stand. The plastered ceiling includes timber beading. The staircase to the western gallery is placed in the south-west corner, accessed from the corridor range. The gallery, which has a panelled front, is carried on two posts. The former women’s business room also has a dado of vertical tongue and groove panelling and includes some furniture of note including an C18 long-case clock by John Gilkes of Shipston-on-Stour, gifted to the Meeting in 2011.

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 travelling 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.

The important Quaker preachers John Audland (about 1630-1664) and John Camm (1605-1657) arrived in Banbury in 1654, where they were hosted by local merchant Edward Vivers. Anne Audland (1627-1705) and Mabel Camm (1605?-1692) with Thomas Robinson held a further meeting in Banbury where they were assaulted and charged with blasphemy. During her time in the town, which included a period of imprisonment, Anne ‘convinced’ numerous people of the Society of Friends’ message and from then on Quakerism flourished there.

Land to the north-west corner of Horse Fair was purchased for a Quaker burial ground, and in 1657 James Wagstaffe built a temporary meeting house behind the Flower-de-Luce Inn on Broad Street. By the mid-1660s a meeting house had been built at the burial ground and a women’s business room was added on a plot bought in 1681. A new main meeting house replacing the mid-C17 building was built in stone in 1749-1751, largely funded by Benjamin Kidd (1693-1751), and the burial ground was extended in 1815. An entrance porch was added in about 1820.

Mid-C19 alterations included the reduction of the meeting house gallery, leaving a single gallery to the west, and the relocation of the Elders’ Stand from the meeting house's north wall to the east. It is likely that the corridor connecting the main meeting house to the women’s business room was added at that time. A small plot to the north of the meeting house was bought in 1868: ancillary buildings in that area date to 1872 and were improved and extended during works carried out in 1906. A kitchen was introduced in 1970 when other works costing £3,300 were completed under the instruction of H Godwin Arnold, architect. Solid-fuel stoves were removed along with the chimneys.

Reasons for Listing

Banbury Meeting House, situated on Horse Fair, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a C17 and C18 Quaker meeting house in a vernacular style and constructed in local materials, typifying the modest nature of these buildings for worship;
* the Elders’ stand, gallery and other historic fabric preserved in the interior, and the suite of components including the former women’s business room, provide evidence for the division of space and internal arrangements typical for earlier Quaker meeting houses.

Historic interest:

* as a purpose-built Quaker meeting house, standing in an attached burial ground dating to the mid-C17.

Group value:

* with the Grade II-listed wall approximately 25m to the south of the meeting house, Church Hall, Church House, ELT Banbury, and numerous other listed buildings fronting Horse Fair including the Grade I-listed Church of St Mary.

External Links

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