Frandley Quaker Meeting House and Burial Ground Wall

Frandley Quaker Meeting House and Burial Ground Wall

This Quaker Meeting House was built between 1880 and 1881 in Gothic style. It stands within a trapezium-plan burial ground enclosed by a wall that dates to the 17th century. A separate Grade II-listed combined school room, stable and carriage shelter is situated towards the south-west corner of the burial ground.

The meeting house is constructed of fair-faced red and orange brick laid in Flemish bond, with a brick plinth featuring blue brick nosing and ventilation bricks. A brick drip-mould band provides detailing, with sandstone used for additional ornamentation. The gable roof is clad in Welsh slate with plastic rainwater goods. Internal fittings and fixtures are of stained pine.

The building has a rectangular plan with three bays and buttresses, oriented south-east to north-west. The main north-west gable features a central four-panel timber door set within a door frame with an arcaded lintel and plain glass four-centred fanlight. The door carries decorative Gothic-style wrought-iron escutcheon and door handle with split ends and a central quatrefoil motif, with square-headed iron studs spaced down the door beading. The doorway has chamfered and recessed brick jambs with moulded four-petal fleuron corbels supporting a plain four-centred brick arch. A differential weathering witness mark on the wall and an inverted V notch in the sandstone window sill above indicate the position of a former porch. The doorway is flanked by a pair of two-light frosted glass timber lancet windows with sloped sandstone sills, chamfered brick jambs and semi-circular heads. Three similar stepped lancet windows above the doorway light the gallery within. The gable has a stepped brick verge with a date stone at the apex reading 1880. The elevation is approached by a modern concrete disabled ramp leading to a platform protected by a low brick wall, consisting of the brick plinth of the now demolished porch, with concrete coping and painted tubular steel railings.

The south-east gable is built in similar manner with three high-set stepped lancet windows glazed with clear glass. There is an area of patched brickwork and a stub of projecting wall at the southern corner. The north-east and south-west three-bay side elevations are identical, articulated by four stepped brick buttresses, a brick plinth at the base, and a corbel table eaves course of stylised moulded beak-head corbels separated by four-petal fleurons. The northern and southern bays each have a pair of two-light lancet windows with semi-circular chamfered brick heads and stone sills resting on a drip-mould band, separated by a chamfered stone mullion. The central bay is occupied by three lancets separated by a pair of stone mullions.

The meeting house is entered via a vestibule from the central door in the north-west elevation. The vestibule has a stained pine floor with tongue and groove wainscot panelling to the outside walls, a timber screen wall and a ceiling formed by the sloping floor of the gallery above. The screen wall has a torus skirting, chamfered and stopped framing with plain panels below the dado rail and chevron panelling above. A six-panel door with turned wooden door knob and escutcheon is situated at the centre of the screen wall, with canted outer panels, plain central panels, chamfered and stopped stiles and rails, and a four-centred top rail. The ceiling is formed by the soffit of the gallery floor above, with exposed chamfered and stopped joists and reeded floorboards.

A timber winder stair rises from the vestibule to the gallery, with a bull-nose bottom step, chamfered newel post with an octagonal newel stop, and a balustrade with moulded handrail and splat balusters. A cupboard entered by a four-panel door is situated beneath the winder treads. The gallery has a three-tier floor with a bench on each tier. The first two benches each have a pierced back, while the rear bench has a tongue and groove panelled back against the rear wall. The gallery has a chevron panelled front rail carried by a heavily moulded beam, which is exposed to the meeting room below. The ends of the beam are supported by a pair of painted brick stylised beak-head and fleuron corbels, with the vestibule screen wall butting up against the rear of the beam.

The meeting room has a stained timber floor with plain painted rendered walls and fielded panel wainscot panelling with original pierced-back benches. A raised stand is situated behind the Elders' bench against the south-east wall, accessed at either end by two steps up from the meeting room floor. The stand has a decorative pierced and panelled front rail with a pierced-back bench situated within the space between the steps. The raised floor of the stand is occupied by benches, with that at the rear spanning the full width of the room and set against plain tongue and groove wainscot panelled lining. The three-bay roof of the meeting house is exposed, carried on a pair of base cruck trusses on painted stone corbels with two tiers of chamfered and stopped purlins, plain rafters, a plank lining and a timber dentilled wall plate cornice.

The burial ground is enclosed by a brick wall dating to the 17th century, built of 14 courses of clamp brick with ridged red sandstone copings. The front wall rises at its centre to form a shouldered gateway with a flat brick arch and red sandstone coping stones, closed by a 21st-century iron gate.