Description

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 30/11/2016

ST5973
901-1/40/492

BRISTOL
Broadmead
QUAKERS FRIARS,
The Friary Building
The Former Quaker Meeting House

(Formerly listed as The Meeting House, QUAKERS FRIARS)

08/01/59

GV
I
Former Quaker meeting house. 1747-9. By George Tully. Stonework details designed and supplied by Thomas Paty, also the contractor. Render with limestone dressings and a leaded roof with hipped Welsh slate roof to a Delabole slate
lantern.

Square open plan. Mid Georgian style. 2 storeys; 3-window range. A symmetrical front with a plat band and moulded, coped parapet, ramped up at the corners. A large, central doorcase has a triple keyed, moulded architrave inscribed 1747, consoles to pediment and a 2-leaf, 8-panel door. Segmental-arched surrounds with sill blocks to flanking 4/8-pane sashes and 3 taller 8/8-pane sashes on the first floor. Similar side elevations each of a 4-window range without doorways. Square lantern has sashes to each face.

INTERIOR: a pedimented inner porch with pilasters and panelled side doors, to a 3x3 bay auditorium, articulated by Doric columns on high octagonal plinths; panelled side galleries to 3 sides between the columns, and keyed, semicircular-arched doorways from the lobby to steps up to them; at the blind W end stood the preacher's desk, in front of a dado and entablature, with stair rails at each end with turned balusters and square newels; central square lantern has a coved ceiling.

FITTINGS: some seating remains in the galleries. The Quakers were established on the site from 1670. An interior of 'noble simplicity' (Ison), restored c1960, with inserted offices. Exceptionally ambitious for a Quaker building and clearly influenced by Wesley's New Rooms (qv).

(Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979: 129; Ison W: The Georgian Buildings of Bristol: Bath: 1952: 62; An Inventory of Nonconformist Chapels...in Central England: Stell C: Gloucestershire: London: 1986: 65).

Listing NGR: ST5927773319

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Quakers Friars at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7268584

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Nottinghamshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6