Gainsborough Quaker Meeting House

Quaker Meeting House built in 1704 with a later single-storey schoolroom added on the north side in 1876; kitchen and toilets were added in the C20.

MATERIALS: the original small meeting house is of red brick laid in a garden wall bond with a pantile roof. The later extension is also of red brick and has a slate roof.

PLAN: rectangular plan.

EXTERIOR: the original small meeting house building is two storeys and has a pitched roof covered in pantiles with a brick chimney stack at the south-east corner. The south front facing the burial ground has rectangular sash windows to the ground floor centre and left. The centre window has been narrowed and has a small datestone over it. Further to the right is an upper-floor window with a small-paned sliding sash and a blocked window below. The east end wall has a central doorway with an early C19 timber surround and a timber casement window over. The west end abuts other buildings.

The north side towards the street is now largely obscured by the single-storey schoolroom building of 1876 and the C20 flat-roofed toilet extension behind it. The schoolroom range has a pitched slated roof and a small-paned sash window in the gable end towards the street.

INTERIOR: the meeting room has plain plastered walls, a tall timber dado with some perimeter seating and a modern flat ceiling (inserted immediately below the original ceiling, which still survives above). Across the west end is a bench for the Elders, almost certainly of early C19 date, made of painted timber with a tall panelled back, a moulded handrail with stick balusters and a lower front rail with heavy turned end-newels; at either end of the stand are small single seats, an unusual feature.

Across the east end of the room is a loft or gallery on two timber piers with moulded capitals. The panelled gallery front has moveable shutters to the upper space. The stair to the gallery is partly C18 and partly C19. The upper space has a corner chimney with a Victorian cast-iron chimneypiece.