Garstang Quaker Meeting House, Barnacre-with-Bonds, Lancashire

Summary

Quaker Meeting House, built 1828-1829. Extension and interior alterations of 2016 to the design of FWP Group.

Description

Quaker Meeting House, built 1828-1829. Extension and interior alterations of 2016 to the design of FWP Group.

MATERIALS: coursed dressed sandstone and rubble-stone walls, slate roof coverings.

PLAN: linear plan comprising the single-storey meeting house, rectangular on plan, to the west, linked to a range comprising a stable and coach-house, rectangular on plan, to the east.

EXTERIOR: the meeting house is situated in the Quaker burial ground accessed from Calder House Lane, oriented south-west to north-east (simplified in the following description to west-east). It is built of one storey with a gabled roof, a low chimney stack to the east gable, a south porch and small north extension. A single-storey extension to the east, built in 2016, links the meeting house of 1828-1829 to the stable-block of about 1900. The south and west elevations of the meeting house are in watershot sandstone blocks, whilst the other elevations are in squared rubble masonry. The gabled roofs have slate coverings.

The meeting house main (south) elevation comprises four bays with, from left to right, two two-light sash windows in plain window openings with stone lintels, then the south porch, and to the right a smaller two-light sash window. The porch, which has a curved front, is entered through a new (2016) glass double-leaf door in a plain stone architrave with a basket-handle arch. The west elevation is blind. The north elevation includes a small brick-built extension built approximately opposite to the south porch. A casement window above the extension lights the meeting house gallery, whilst another to the left of the extension lights the former women’s business room on the ground floor. The former east elevation is now largely obscured by the stone-built extension of 2016, comprising a full-height fixed window of six lights curving to join the south wall of the stable block. The extension has a curved shed roof covered in slate.

The stable south front comprises two windows and a plain plank door, whilst the two-bay coach house to its right is open-fronted with a single column to the front. The east and north walls of this range are blind.

INTERIOR: the meeting house porch, which includes possibly original ironwork hat pegs, gives access to a pair of doors. The door to the left leads into the main meeting room, whilst that to the right opens into the former women’s business room, now an activity space. The meeting room door opens into a short passageway beneath the gallery. The passageway is defined to the left by a partition that is fully-panelled to the north and glazed to the south, and continuing upwards to form the panelled front to the gallery. A central opening leads into the main meeting room. A stair with stick balusters and a moulded hand rail at the north end of the passageway leads up to the gallery, which includes three tiers of seating.

The main meeting room includes a panelled dado, ramped up at the west end to the Elders’ stand. The stand, which extends across the full length of the west wall, includes two fixed benches. The panelled front to the rear bench forms the back to the front bench, and includes a moulded hand rail carried on turned balusters. The stand is accessed by short flights of steps at each end. The former women’s business room below the gallery is lit by small ground-floor windows to north and south. Its west wall has rectangular openings with shutters. Hooks to secure the shutters open remain in the ceiling.

A door in the north wall of the former women’s business room leads into the small northern extension, whilst new openings in the east wall lead into the library and kitchen facilities afforded by the new (2016) extension. The now attached stable includes five stalls, whilst the coach-house provides an open-fronted space.

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 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. 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.

Formerly known as Calder Bridge Meeting House, the site of Garstang meeting house was provided by the Jackson family, local industrialists operating water-powered mills at nearby Calder Vale. The plot, which includes the burial ground, is to the rear of Calder House, also owned by the Jacksons. The meeting house was licensed in 1829 and conveyed by Richard Jackson (1783-1846) to the Society of Friends a year later (Jackson, an important local mill-owner who also built model housing for his workers, is buried in the meeting house’s burial ground). The simple single-storey meeting house included two ground-floor rooms, that to the east under a raked gallery. The plan form is similar to other Quaker meeting houses in the region including Yealand (built 1692, Grade II*) and Lancaster (built 1677, Grade II*). A separate stone-built stable with five stalls and a coach house to the east of the meeting house were built by J Curwen and Sons of Bowgreave in about 1900, for the use of Quakers riding to meeting. A small extension to the north wall of the meeting house, to provide a toilet, may have been added at that time. In 2016 the meeting house was extended to the east and linked to the stable block, to a design by FWP Group.

Reasons for Listing

Garstang Quaker Meeting House, situated on Calder House Lane, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* an early-C19 meeting house in a vernacular style, typifying the Quaker ethos of modest, understated architecture, which retains its essential historic form and character;
* the regionally-distinctive plan form, and fittings preserved in the interior including the main meeting room gallery and Elders’ stand, and the shuttered partition with suspension hooks in 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 meeting house standing in its attached burial ground, closely associated with a noted local Quaker family.

External Links

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