Friends Meeting House, Warrington, Bewsey and Whitecross, Warrington

Summary

Quaker Meeting House, 1830 with late C20 alterations.

Description

Quaker Meeting House, 1830 with late-C20 alterations.

MATERIALS: red brick in Flemish bond, a plain painted ashlar stone plinth and eaves cornice, and a slate-clad roof.

PLAN: a rectangular plan aligned north-east to south-west, with an offset projecting apsidal entrance and a stair hall bay to the main (south-east) elevation, and a late-C20 L-plan extension built against the west corner of the rear wall.

EXTERIOR: the meeting house is a tall single-storey four-bay rectangular-plan building. All windows in the main elevation are tall 12-paned sashes with exposed sash boxes and painted ashlar stone sills, beneath gauged-brick flat-arched heads; the window in the apse is curved. The main entrance is situated in the right-hand return of the apse and faces to the north-east; it is closed by six-panelled double doors, also beneath a gauged-brick flat-arched head. There is a blocked doorway in the south-west side. The north-east elevation has a large recessed segmental arched panel, containing a tripartite sash window with a fanlight. The rear (north-west) side of the building has two large window openings that have been blocked and a single-storey C20 kitchen and toilet extension. The south-west gabled elevation is rendered and blind. The slate roof has a hip to the north-east and a gable to the south-west where it was built against another structure, since demolished. It is drained by cast-iron rainwater goods attached to the eaves cornice.

INTERIOR: the building is laid out on a tripartite plan, with a central corridor, two meeting rooms and a projecting entrance and stair hall. The stair hall has a cantilevered timber stair that follows the internal curve of the apse; it has a wreathed handrail, stick balusters, an open string and timber treads. A doorway from the entrance hall into the meeting house leads into a corridor that has shutters worked on a vertically sliding sash principle on both sides, and broad panelled doors to the respective meeting rooms on each side. At the far end, there is a toilet and kitchen extension. The room to the south-west is a small meeting room formed beneath the gallery, which is supported by four tall cast-iron columns. The principal meeting room is on the north-east side of the corridor, with the ministers’ stand on the north-east wall below a large arched window. The stand retains fixed seating on two levels, and the pine joinery has a grained finish; the upper bench has a divider in the centre and incorporates a hinged desk on brackets and there is a built-in bookcase at one end. The stand has steps at both ends between fixed seating, with tall panelled backs and ramped bench ends. The lowest tier of seating is in similar style, but with shaped bench ends and it has been slightly modified. A panelled dado of matching grained pine runs around the room, ramped up to the stand and there are witness marks of fixings for former seating. The shuttered moveable partition and the panelled gallery front to the south-west end of the meeting room are all painted. The gallery behind the partition is accessed from the cantilevered stairs; it has a tiered floor with some witness marks indicating the position of former benches.

MAPPING NOTE: the small 1970s rear extension is not depicted by the Ordnance Survey and has therefore not been mapped.

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.

The establishment of the Quakers in the Warrington area had its origins in meetings held in the house of William Barnes of Great Sankey until 1681. The first meeting house was built at Penketh, within an earlier burial ground, and was rebuilt in 1736. From the early C18, the Warrington Quakers held their own evening meetings and acquired the present site in 1725 when a meeting house was built. This in turn was replaced by the present building in 1830. The building was designed to accommodate the monthly meetings covering the Manchester area and quarterly meetings of the Lancashire area. The building stands within an enclosed L-plan burial ground.

It is unclear when alterations were made to the furnishings of the larger meeting room, or when the doorway (possibly for women) in the south-west elevation of the entrance bay was blocked. The original benches appear to have been adjusted, and free-standing benches introduced into the main body of the room. Alterations were carried out in the 1970s when a partition was introduced into the gallery, set back from the line of the gallery front, in order to make the main space more manageable for heating, and to create a storage area. A small extension was also made to the rear of the building in order to provide kitchen and toilet facilities.

A cottage and school adjacent to the site were acquired in 1821 for use as a Quaker school, with teachers’ accommodation. Initially for children, it later catered for adults. The building is thought to have originated as premises of another dissenting group, founded by Joanna Southcott, but the early history is obscure. The buildings are rented to tenants and the former school is in use as a workshop.

Reasons for Listing

Warrington Meeting House is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a large, early-C19 meeting house, exhibiting a restrained and unostentatious character that reflects the traditions of the Quaker movement;
* the interior remains largely intact, retaining original fittings, including: the cantilevered stair, the gallery, the ministers’ stand with fitted bench seating, dado panelling, and a pair of vertical sliding timber sash partition walls.

External Links

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