Bournville Quaker Meeting House

Quaker Meeting House, 1905 by William Alexander Harvey, with subsequent phases of extension.

MATERIALS: constructed from red brick with limestone dressings and tiled roofs.

PLAN: the building stands at the junction of Linden Road, Woodbrooke Road and the Green. The original building had a rectangular plan orientated roughly north-south, with short angled wings and a stair tower framing the main entrance on the southern gable end. The building has since been extended to the north and west.

EXTERIOR: the main range of the building is a double-height structure with a pitched roof. The south gable end has a central doorway with a splayed opening with a Romanesque arch of five plain orders, containing timber doors. To either side there is a pair of mullioned casement windows with diamond leaded glazing. Above is a large six-light window with a wide mullion and transoms. In the gable a sundial is mounted on an incised stone panel. The elevation is articulated with stone bands, quoins and moulded copings on the gable. An octagonal stair tower rises at the left junction the gable; it has small leaded casements and a pyramidal roof with projecting rafter feet and iron brackets. Short single-storey wings with pitched roofs project diagonally at the angles, framing the gable end. That to the right (east) has a three-light mullioned window on the southern side, and within its gable is a stone-lined arched alcove with a bust of George Cadbury on a square pedestal. The left-hand (west) wing has a four-light mullioned and transomed window in its gable end.

The side elevations, facing roughly east and west, are fours bays in length. Each bay has a wide moulded segmental-arched recess within the brickwork containing a timber mullion and transom window. Rafter feet line the eaves, and the roof has a two- or three-light hipped dormer to each bay.

Extensions, of lesser interest, begin at the north gable, recessed from the building line and with lower, shallower pitched roofs. The 1960s extension is a rectangular pitched range set perpendicular to the main range, linked by a narrow flat-roofed section. A later, flat-roofed extension wraps around the north-west corner.

INTERIOR: the original entrance into the meeting house is via a tiled lobby, which also provides entrance to the stair tower and service rooms within the southern wings. The east wing contains the Cadbury’s columbarium. The meeting hall is lined with matchboarding to the dado with plain plaster above. There is a blind arch on the north gable end, and a gallery with a timber balustrade across the southern end. The meeting hall is a double-height space, well lit by large windows in the elevations and dormers in the roof. The four bays of the roof structure have collar trusses supported on arched braces rising from the floor. There are two tiers of purlins, with closely spaced rafters and beams at collar level, above which the roof is ceiled.