North Walsham Quaker Meeting House

Quaker meeting house. 1772, restored in 1984 under the instruction of Christopher Codling, architect.

MATERIALS: red brick laid to Flemish bond, with pantile roof coverings.

PLAN: the single-storey meeting house is square on plan with a hipped roof, with a small eastern extension, rectangular on plan, under a gable roof.

EXTERIOR: the meeting house stands back from the Mundesley Road in a rural area, approximately 160m to the north of the detached burial ground. It has a low brick plinth and a brick cornice, and a hipped roof with black pantile coverings. The main (south) elevation of three bays includes the centrally-placed entrance flanked by a six-over-six sash window to either side. The doorway has a moulded timber surround with a shallow hood. The windows, under flat arches, have flush frames and projecting sills. There are three three-over-three sash windows in the upper level, lighting the meeting house gallery. These also have projecting sills and flush frames. There is a pair of similar three-over-three sash windows in the upper level of both the west and east elevations, whilst the rear (north) elevation is blind. The meeting house’s date stone, reading 1772, is placed high up in the north elevation.

The meeting house’s east elevation is largely obscured by the single-storey extension which provides kitchen and cloakroom facilities. This structure has an entrance door and small window to both its north and south elevations, with a further small window in the east elevation. Its west-east oriented gable roof with red and black pantile coverings now includes a catslide over the north side of the extension, where the structure has been extended almost as far as the meeting house’s north wall.

INTERIOR: the double-leaf entrance door in the south elevation leads directly into a lobby spanning the full width of the meeting house. Quarter-turn stairs at each end of the lobby provide access to the gallery above. The lobby is divided from the main meeting room by the panelled backs of fixed benches to either side of a central walkway. Two Tuscan columns support the gallery. The plain panelled gallery front carries a handrail on short turned balusters, and two more columns incorporated in the gallery front support the flat plaster ceiling. The gallery is divided into western and eastern spaces by a central partition.

The main meeting room has vertical plank panelling with a chair rail or dado above which continues around the walls, broken only by a doorway in the east wall leading into the kitchen and cloakrooms of the eastern extension. The panelling to the north wall is higher behind the centrally-placed seating of the Elders’ Stand. The Stand comprises two ranks of raked fixed benches extending the full length of the north wall, with two entrances either side of the centre benches. The ceiling has a moulded cornice and all the timberwork is painted.