Friends House, and Drayton House, with walls, railings, and garden to east

Friends House is a Quaker meeting house with central offices and library of the Society of Friends, built in 1924–1928 in neo-Georgian style to the design of Hubert Lidbetter. The builders were Messrs Grace & Marsh of Croydon. The building incorporates Drayton House, a separate lettable accommodation block.

Materials

The building has a steel construction sheathed in grey Luton brick laid in English bond with Portland stone dressings and a basement. It retains its original wooden sash windows, with metal-framed windows to the central block of the rear elevation. The external timber doors are also original.

Plan

The building is a long rectangular block set on an east-west alignment, composed of three sections, each roughly square. The main elevation faces the Euston Road to the north, and the garden lies in line with the building to the east. At the centre is the meeting house block, containing the full-height large meeting house, now (2020) known as 'The Light', surrounded by walkways to north, west and east, with the area formerly containing the small meeting room to the south. The north cloister is entered through a portico, accessed from Euston Road to the north. This central block has stairs at each corner. The administrative block to the east is entered from the garden to the east, which leads into the stair hall, with the library to the south-east and the bookshop/café to the north-east. In the western part of this central block is the square courtyard, surrounded by walkways, with former offices, now (2020) bookshop, to the north, and committee rooms to the south, with offices above. The western block, Drayton House, is entered from Gordon Street to the west.

Exterior

The building is of three storeys, basement and attic with a flat roof behind a parapet. There is a deep moulded stone cornice beneath the attic, and the corners of the building are marked by quoins represented by paired recessed brick courses. Original incised lettering to the stonework identifies the building itself ('FRIENDS HOUSE') on the pilasters of the north portico, with an arrow directing visitors to the 'CENTRAL OFFICES' to the east, and 'DRAYTON HOUSE' announced on the pilasters of the eastern portico.

The long principal elevation to the north has a central frontispiece containing a tetrastyle Doric portico in antis rising through three storeys, with flanking stone bays framed by pilasters. There are three doorways between the columns, of equal stature, with fasces above the architrave; the narrower architraves to the outer bays are elongated to include a fanlight beneath the fasces, having a window with a stepped surround above. On either side of the portico are ten bays of flat-arched six-over-six sash windows. In the penultimate bays, the central window has a stepped stone architrave with a projecting iron balcony; below is a round-headed doorway with an elongated surround and keystone, and above is a keyed roundel.

The west and east elevations each have a central distyle portico in antis, with a window above the doorway, and five bays to either side.

On the south elevation, the central seven bays, representing the meeting house block, are set forward. The internal arrangement of the formerly full-height small meeting house with stairs to either side providing access at three levels produces a distinct frontage within the wider elevation. The three central bays—each with a tall, round-headed window—mark the extent of the former small meeting house, flanked by slightly recessed bays—each having a lunette opening with an elongated surround and keystone to the ground floor, a tripartite second-floor window, and an intermediate small vertical window—flanked in turn by entrance bays with round-headed windows apparently resting on basement door openings. To the first floor of this central section are small square casement windows in stone frames, formerly the clerestory to the small meeting house. To either side of the central section are ten bays, as on the front elevation, the penultimate bays having a central window with a stepped stone architrave and a stone balcony, and a keyed roundel above.

To the east of the building is a wide stone terrace, with steps to the north and south, enclosed by a new stone wall and original stone benches to the east, flanking a long stone ramp leading eastwards through the garden. To either side new dwarf stone walls enclose lawns and beds.

Interior

The central portico precedes the entrance foyer to the large meeting house. This area, together with the wide corridors to east and west of the large meeting room, remains largely intact, with features including stone dados, and pilasters with shallow stepped panels, as well as door and radiator surrounds. The coffered ceilings retain original bronze lamps.

The current appearance of the large meeting house at the centre of the building, now (2020) known as 'The Light', is the result of the 2015 renovation, which saw the installation of a ceiling of stepped aluminium rising to a large skylight, with tiers of fixed seating on all sides, within the existing Classical framework of the room. Surviving original features include pilasters to the corners of the room, supporting moulded beams; panelling to ground-floor level, the dais to the north, and timber doors and doorcases, with doorkeeper's seats.

The former small meeting house to the south has been divided horizontally, with small rooms at ground-floor level, and a large first-floor room. The stairs at each corner of this block are of stone-lined Imperial form to first-floor level, and open-well with painted metal balustrades at the upper levels.

The main entrance to Friends House to the east leads to an entrance hall lined with polished Leckhampton stone, beneath a deeply coffered ceiling, with enclosed stairs on either side; brass rail has been added to the low stone wall at first-floor level. An opening framed by Doric columns leads to the cloister (the term used by Lidbetter in his plans) surrounding the courtyard to the east, which has stone door and radiator surrounds and polished terrazzo flooring. The stone-paved courtyard ('meeting house yard' in early plans), is accessed from the cloister by original folding glazed timber doors, filling wide openings. The courtyard has a central circular fountain of brick with a stone coping (intended to counteract noise from the Euston Road), and is overlooked by terraces accessed from the first floor to west and east, with iron balustrades. To the east, the stair tower is expressed by a giant aedicule containing the doorway from the entrance hall, with a canted bay window set between the pilasters above a stone clock, and a semi-circular window above the frieze.

In the south-east corner of the building is the double-height library, with a coffered ceiling. The library is fitted with original double-height bookcases—now somewhat modified—divided into reading bays, with geometric timber balustrades to the upper section. In the south-east corner of the building is the original book centre, its ceiling defined by axial beams with coving, the space now combined with the former central offices along the southern range to form a café and bookshop. At the west end of the former office space is a small 21st-century meeting room, designed by Theis and Khan. Along the north range of this section are the former committee rooms. A single space was originally divided into three equal parts by folding panelled timber doors; one set of doors has now been repositioned.

The upper floors at the east end of the building contain offices and meeting rooms and now have a modern character, though some original fittings survive, including panelled and glazed doors. The stair serving the upper levels is at the west side of the east range, having a painted metal balustrade with a moulded timber rail. In many places modifications have been made to the interior faces of external walls, for insulation purposes. The third-floor warden's flat, brought into office use in about 2006, retains small brick fire surrounds, painted panelled doors and tiled window cills. The basement contains archive storage to the north, and a restaurant area to the south, originally designated as a tea room, and recently refurbished.

The interior of Drayton House was not inspected, but the entrance hall and stair to the east of the building are stone lined, with plain shallow panels, the open-well stair rising around a lift shaft. There are glazed timber double doors to north and south, as found in the main part of the building.

Subsidiary Features

There are original geometric railings set on low stone walls defining the garden to north and south, with gates at each corner. Railings on low walls also enclose the basement on the west and east elevations, and along the western section of the south elevation; to the eastern section of the south elevation, the basement is enclosed by a stone wall.