Leiston Quaker Meeting House

Leiston Quaker Meeting House

A Quaker Meeting House constructed in Italianate style in 1860 to the designs of William Parkes Ribbans.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with rusticated yellow brick quoins and a roof of Welsh slate. It follows a conventional plan, with a lobby leading into a large main meeting room. To the west, separated by a screen of vertical sliding shutters, is a smaller meeting room or classroom. This smaller room now includes an enclosed staircase rising to an inserted upper floor, and beyond it on the ground floor is a 1988 extension containing a kitchen and meeting room.

The principal structure is a rectangular building three bays wide and one bay deep beneath a hipped slate roof. The building is entered from the north, which presents the most elaborate elevation. The central bay is defined by yellow brick quoins and is topped by a pediment with a circular louver at the centre. A single-storey yellow brick porch projects outwards from the centre bay with four brick pilasters and a pair of painted wooden double doors at their centre. Each bay has a six-over-nine sash window in a yellow brick surround topped by a segmental lintel with a keystone and weather moulding. The lower six panes of the central window are cut off by the porch. The east elevation is entirely plain red brick in Flemish bond. The south elevation contains three undifferentiated bays of six-over-nine sash windows matching those to the north. To the west the 19th-century Meeting House joins the 1988 extension, concealing the base of a brick chimney stack between the two. The extension is slightly set back from the principal north elevation and is one bay wide, projecting south of the building by a single bay. The whole structure is in Flemish bonded Fletton red bricks with painted timber windows and doors.

The main meeting room has plain plastered walls and ceilings and a floor of pine boards. Matchboard dado panelling runs around three sides of the perimeter, rising three steps up to the Elders' stand at the east of the room, which is topped by a plain handrail. The Elders' bench has a single arm rest at the centre. Original gas lamp fittings to the walls remain in place while electric pendant lights are suspended from the ceiling. The west end of this meeting room has a timber screen in five parts with a pair of partially glazed doors in the northernmost part. The other four contain vertically sliding wooden shutters, each with two reeded panels, allowing the adjoining small meeting room to be brought into communication with the larger room.

The smaller meeting room has gas lamps and dado panelling, some parts of which are fitted with hinged or fixed reading desks. The room is interrupted by an enclosed staircase leading to the inserted floor of a storeroom above. A king post truss roof of quality deal timber reinforced with iron straps, common rafters and purlins, survives within the roof space. The 1988 extension contains a small entrance hall, a kitchen and meeting room looking out on to the churchyard. The exposed roof structure of the meeting room is of laminated pine and rises to a square roof light.