Friends Meeting House

The Friends Meeting House in Lancaster is a Quaker meeting house, dating primarily to 1708, with alterations in 1769, extensions in 1779 and 1790, and further internal changes in the early 19th century and 1969. It is constructed of sandstone rubble, with a pebbledashed front, and features a stone slate roof at the front and slate at the rear.

The building is single-storey, with a two-storey porch and a small attic storey above the left-hand meeting room. It has three bays to the left of the porch and five bays to the right. The windows are characterised by painted rebated and chamfered surrounds with hinge pins for shutters. Originally cross windows, the windows were altered in 1769 when mullions and transoms were removed to be replaced with glazing bar sashes. An additional window was added to the left in 1789 when the small meeting room was enlarged, and two further windows were added to the right in 1790 during the extension of the large meeting room. The porch, likely added in the late 18th century, has canted sides with glazing bar sashes providing light to the upper room. The doorway has a carved semi-elliptical arch with a keystone. Gables are coped, and the left-hand gable features an ashlar chimney stack with a cornice and weathered offsets, while a second chimney cap is near the junction of the porch and main roof. The east gable wall of the 1779 extension is constructed of coursed squared sandstone and incorporates a Venetian window with a stone surround and Gothic glazing. A three-light mullioned window has been revealed on the rear wall following the demolition of adjacent school buildings. A rear wing, added in 1852 as a warden’s cottage, includes further later additions related to the former Friends' School.

Inside the porch, a chamfered doorway leading to the left-hand meeting room incorporates a reset datestone inscribed ‘1677’, salvaged from the original meeting house on the site. An inscribed grave slab belonging to John Lawson, removed from the Friends' burial ground, is attached to the wall. Galleries were removed from the large meeting room in the early 20th century and from the west in 1969, when the partition screen separating the meeting room from a vestibule corridor was moved and partially glazed. This screen incorporates 18th-century woodwork including raised and fielded panels, pilasters, and a timber cornice. The north wall is panelled to dado height with raised and fielded panels, while the east wall is similarly panelled with plain panels. The ceiling features four cased beams and two decorative 19th-century vents.