Brant Broughton Quaker Meeting House and attached stable

Brant Broughton Quaker Meeting House and attached stable

This building began as a 17th-century barn, cottage and stable, which was converted to a Quaker Meeting House around 1701. It has undergone alterations in the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

The structure is built of brick with some re-facing in coursed Ancaster stone. It has brick chimney stacks. The pitched roof of the meeting house is covered in pantiles, with the overhanging lower courses supported on wrought iron poles and decorative iron brackets supporting the guttering. The former stable has a hipped roof also covered in pantiles. Windows and doors throughout are of painted timber with timber lintels.

The meeting house is rectangular on plan and orientated roughly north to south, set at right-angles to the road. The main meeting room is at the north end with the lobby and former women's business meeting room at the south end. To the north of the meeting house is the former stable block, separated from it by a covered passageway.

The principal east elevation is of coursed Ancaster stone. At the left-hand end are two doorways with 18th-century six-panel doors. Over the right-hand door is a circular stone plaque bearing the letters RTS (for Thomas and Sarah Robinson) and the date 1701. Two early 18th-century timber cross windows with timber shutters are positioned at the right-hand end. Beneath the far-right window stands a mounting block of red brick with stone capping and an iron post to the top step.

The south gable end wall incorporates a stone sundial of uncertain date. Both this wall and the rear west wall have lower courses of coursed stone with upper courses of red brick laid in Flemish and garden wall bonds. To the right-hand end of the rear wall is a three-light 17th-century window with leaded lights beneath a segmental head, above which is a raking dormer. To the left, the stonework continues to the eaves and incorporates a timber cross window.

The former stable block is of red brick with a tiled hipped roof on the street elevation to the north; two windows have been inserted here.

The main meeting room inside has dado-height timber panelling and perimeter bench seating with a dais at the north end. The Elders' bench is fixed into the front of the dais. The walls and ceiling are plastered, and two exposed tie beams of the roof trusses sit beneath the ceiling. At the south end is a full-height painted panelled timber screen with hinged shutters to both lower and upper levels; at its centre is a two-plank door with applied panelling. The lobby at the south end has a painted timber panelled dado with a fixed bench to the west wall. The south wall contains a fireplace with an 18th-century cast-iron hob grate, a fireproof closet dated 1828 to the right, and to the left a cupboard and door to the staircase, both with strap hinges and wooden latches. Eighteenth-century hat hooks are also present. A winder staircase leads to the former women's business meeting room above, which retains a small hob grate. In this room the timber screen abuts the tie beam of the closed roof truss above, which contains a small plank door giving access to the loft.

The former stable retains fixed chains for tying up horses and collar and tie-beam roof trusses.