St Helens Quaker Meeting House, St Helens, St. Helens

Summary

Quaker Meeting House, converted from a former house of late C16 or early C17 date, with later alterations including a rear extension added in 1965-1966.

Description

Quaker Meeting House, converted from a former house of late C16 or early C17 date, with later alterations including a rear extension added 1965-1966.

MATERIALS: coursed sandstone and stone dressings, stone slate roof coverings.

PLAN: the meeting house is L-shaped on plan. The principal range is the east-west oriented single-storey gabled meeting house, with a north-south wing to the rear built 1965-1966.

EXTERIOR: the meeting house is set back from the road, situated facing south onto a garden. The meeting house main (south) elevation of four bays comprises, from left to right, a five-light and then a three-light double-chamfered mullion window, the entrance doorway, and a further five-light window all to the ground floor. The doorway surround has quoins and a segmental arch with a keystone. The windows have diamond leaded glazing. A continuous drip mould runs above the ground-floor windows and doorway, above which over the door is a sundial dated 1753. In the upper level there is a six-light chamfered mullion window to the left, and a similar three-light window to the right.

The west gable includes the large, deep, projecting stepped chimney stack, with a small red brick lean-to to its left. The east gable includes a seven-light transom window with a label mould, lighting the main meeting room at ground-floor level. The rear (north) elevation includes, from left to right, the link to the 1960s extension, a three-light mullioned stone window, and two six-over-six sash windows under the eaves. To the far right of this elevation there is a built-up ground-floor doorway with a stone lintel. The meeting house’s gabled roof has stone slate roof coverings and stone coped gables, with two copper vents to the ridge.

The single-storey range built 1965-1966 extends from the east end of the meeting house's north elevation. It comprises a flat-roofed linking section, fully-glazed to the west, and a taller single-storey unit comprising the children’s room or library which is lit by three uPVC windows. The children’s room is built in coursed stone reclaimed from a former lean-to attached to the meeting house north elevation, and has a shed roof with slate roof coverings.

INTERIOR: the main entrance door leads into a small timber vestibule in the main meeting room. The meeting room comprises the full-height space of the principal range in which the late-C19 roof is exposed, showing the king-post trusses. Rebates in the oak lintel to the eastern window in the front elevation may suggest the presence of joists for the upper floor or for a former gallery. The room has a tongue and groove panelled dado, ramped up to the Elders’ stand, and is plainly plastered and painted. The C18 stand, which extends across the full length of the west wall, includes two raked fixed benches approached up short flights of steps to each end. A balustrade of pierced splat balusters carries a handrail to the rear bench. There is a full-height sliding timber and glazed partition on the north wall, installed in the early C20. It can be drawn into the meeting room to divide it into western and eastern spaces. A doorway in the north wall leads into the north-south corridor of the C20 extension. A kitchen and toilets lead off the corridor on the eastern side, with the children’s room to the north.

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 1,000 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.

St Helens Meeting House is a late-C16 or early-C17 building, originally a house. It is reported to be the oldest surviving building in St Helens. George Shaw of Bickerstaffe (a yeoman recorded as a collar-worker in 1676) bought three plots of land, including the house, in 1675 and conveyed the meeting house and its burial ground to Hardshaw Monthly Meeting in 1679. Evidence for the building’s domestic origins include a large fireplace and bread oven in the west wall (obscured by the Elders’ Stand) and indications of the former upper floor, removed to form the full-height meeting room.

Meeting for worship well before the Act of Toleration of 1689, Quakers in St Helens experienced persecution. In 1684, for example, the local constabulary seized items including furniture to be sold in payment of fines for meeting unlawfully and Shaw was convicted for allowing the house to be used for meeting for worship. The meeting house was registered and certified as a place of worship in 1689.

Regular Sunday meetings stopped in 1773 and the meeting house was used by Hardshaw Monthly Meeting and congregations of other denominations including, during the C19, Presbyterians and a Welsh congregation (from 1874 to 1875). Quaker weekly meetings for worship recommenced in 1884. The sliding partition in the main meeting room was installed after that date. An Elders’ Stand was also installed.

A disused lean-to structure to the north elevation was removed in the C20, and between 1965 and 1966 a single-storey extension was built to provide new facilities including a children’s room. That made use of recycled stone from the demolished structure. The sundial over the main entrance, dated 1753, was restored in 1995; a sundial was first recorded at the meeting house in 1691. The former Quaker burial ground to the east is now a public park.

Reasons for Listing

St Helens Meeting House, situated on Church Street, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an historic survivor of a C17 Quaker meeting house adapted from an earlier domestic building;
* the local vernacular architectural style typifies the development of the meeting house type, and forms an attractive building in its garden environs;
* the 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 meeting house in use before the Act of Toleration of 1689, evidencing Quakers’ determination to practice their faith.

External Links

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