Friends Meeting House

The Friends Meeting House, located at 120 Heath Street, is a Society of Friends (Quaker) Meeting House built in 1907 by architect Frederick Rowntree. The building features a stucco exterior with a brick ground floor on the left side. It has a tiled gabled roof topped with a tall buttressed chimney-stack on the return and is designed in the Arts and Crafts Free Style.

The structure is two storeys high with a basement. The gabled facade facing Heath Street includes a semicircular timber porch supported by distyle-in-antis columns, which rest on the second of three stone steps. This porch features a deep entablature with a copper half-dome, and the entrance has panelled doors that are part-glazed with small panes and brass handles. To the right of the entrance, there is a transom and mullion window with glazing bars, and above, a similarly styled Venetian window at the first floor level.

On the left side, facing Hampstead Square, there are grilled semi-basement windows. The left gabled bay contains three 2-light square-headed casements set in shallow segmental-arched recesses, complete with louvred shutters and a keyed oculus at the apex, all featuring small panes. The right bay has one single window and a three-light window, along with a box dormer that breaks through the overhanging eaves, all with glazing bars.

Inside, the Meeting House is plain but includes Arts and Crafts detailing. A small lobby leads into a hall adorned with a motif of shallow arches around the walls. The first floor features a library with a fireplace.

Historically, Frederick Rowntree was part of the renowned Quaker chocolate manufacturing family from Yorkshire and designed several Friends' Meeting Houses across the country.