Alton Quaker Meeting House, With Front Boundary Wall And Attached Burial Ground Walls

This Quaker meeting house was built in 1672 and stands as one of the earliest purpose-built meeting houses of the Society of Friends. The building forms a complex with two attached cottages — the original cottage dating from 1672 and a later cottage added in 1832 — along with historic boundary walls enclosing a burial ground.

Materials and Construction

The building is constructed of red brick laid in English bond, though much of the west and north elevations are now rendered, leaving only the brick plinth exposed. The east elevation and the west elevation of the south-west wing retain visible brickwork. The main roof is hipped and covered with handmade clay tiles; this roof extends over the 1832 northern cottage. The south-west wing also has a hipped roof with clay tiles and features tile-hanging to the first floor. The meeting hall retains timber sash windows, while the rest of the building has metal-framed casements with leaded lights and internal secondary glazing.

Plan and Layout

The meeting house stands on a north-south alignment with its principal elevation facing west towards Church Street. The original 1672 cottage is attached in line to the north, with the 1832 cottage extending further northwards. A wing projects westwards from the south end to meet Church Street; its ground floor was originally open, forming a porch. Small extensions from the late 20th or early 21st century have been added to the north-east, east, and south-east of the meeting house.

External Description

The main entrance is through the south-west wing. This wing originally had an open-fronted porch at ground level, but the front has since been filled with a brick wall containing a casement window, with double doors to the east. A pair of double doors, possibly original, survive in the west wall of the meeting house within the porch area. These are of solid plank and batten construction with false panels to the front. Above the porch, the tile-hung wall rises to a gable — this is original, though the window arrangement has been altered. The ground-floor brick wall to the west is thought to be original and is pierced by a single window, with a small window at first-floor level below the eaves.

The meeting hall within the main range is expressed externally by a single large sash window on the west elevation. The exposed sash box is set flush with the wall and contains six-over-six unhorned frames. Further north, the original cottage is entered through a doorway protected by a hood on replacement carved brackets. The door has a single panel below with glazing above. This cottage has a ground-floor window to the north and two dormer windows; the northern dormer opening has been extended below eaves level and fitted with two separate casements. The 1832 cottage has a door opening with a matching hood and modern door, plus a single window on the western elevation.

The north elevation has seen considerable change, including the removal of an external stack, the rebuilding and enlargement of a lean-to porch extension, and alterations to the fenestration. These changes created a tripartite window at ground floor and a large horizontal window in the roof hip.

On the east elevation, the meeting hall is lit by two sash windows of the same form as that on the west. A small single-storey block extends eastwards from the south end, and a doorway has been inserted between this and the southern meeting hall window, with a dormer window above. North of the meeting hall is another small 20th-century extension providing a kitchen, replacing an earlier catslide extension. The rear of the original cottage has a tripartite window at ground floor with a dormer above, extended in the same manner as on the west. The join between the two cottages is visible on the east elevation. The 1832 cottage has a rear doorway and a tripartite window at ground floor with a dormer above. The northern lean-to extends beyond the eastern face of the building.

Interior

The former porch area now contains a small reading room to the west and a WC to the south-east. The meeting house itself comprises the meeting room to the north, with a lobby to the south and a former gallery above the lobby.

The gallery was erected in 1690 and is of solid oak construction. Stop-chamfered posts support it, and there are sturdy turned balusters to the balustrade. A folding screen is fitted beneath the gallery, with two hinged five-panel sections on either side of double three-panel doors, and with fixed panels at the ends and framing the gallery. The screen retains its original furniture, including hinges and stays. Rising panelled shutters are fitted behind the balustrade and are now permanently lowered. The screen is painted on the lobby side but unpainted within the meeting hall and gallery space.

At the north end of the meeting room is the bench or stand for the ministers and elders. The bench is raised on a dais with tongue-and-groove dado panelling behind and a screen to the front; a candleholder once fixed to this screen has been removed. It is possible that originally there was a lower bench in front of the screen for the elders, with the raised stand behind accommodating travelling ministers. The stand and panelling are 19th century. Panelling is understood to have been removed from the other walls of the meeting room; this is thought to have been similar to the panelling forming the back of the stand. The hall has two ceiling beams supported on chamfered timber pilasters, stopped at a central moulding which possibly once related to the lost panelling. The floor to the meeting hall and lobby is of 1960s woodblock. In the lobby, a 19th-century strongbox is set into the thickness of the south wall. A modern stair rises from the south-east corner of the lobby to the gallery.

The gallery space is now (2018) in office use, and the gallery shutters are boxed in. The space is partially panelled with 19th-century tongue-and-groove boarding. Above the meeting hall and gallery, the 17th-century roof structure survives intact. The pegged structure has coupled rafters with two collars and windbraces beneath the purlins; there has been minimal 20th-century replacement and reinforcement. The purlins and windbraces are visible within the gallery space. A partition has been inserted between the gallery space and the room in the south-west wing above the porch; the junction between the two ranges was once open. This south-west room also has boarded panelling.

The two cottages have been reconfigured internally. The main ground-floor room of the original cottage has been incorporated into the meeting house, accessed through 1960s openings in the north wall of the meeting hall to either side of the stand. This room has a transverse beam, chamfered with scroll stops, supported centrally on a re-used post. The stack having been removed, there is no fireplace in the north wall, but a niche survives at the east end.

Other than this ground-floor room, the cottages have been re-arranged to form two flats. The first, accessed via the 1672 doorway, extends across the first floor of both cottages; the roof's arched tie beams are visible. There are two niches in the former end wall of the 17th-century cottage. The second flat occupies the ground floor of the 1832 cottage with small extensions to the north-east; no historic features remain within this part of the building.

Boundary Walls

The standing wall between the meeting house and Church Street is of brick with a triangular moulded brick coping. The date of the building, '1672', is set into the brickwork in black glazed bricks; the figures are very large and widely spaced along the length of the wall. At either end of the wall is an opening containing a 20th-century wrought-iron gate.

To the north, the wall continues, turning east and then south to enclose the burial ground. The wall is at the same height as that fronting the meeting house and has a similar coping, but is made of flint punctuated with flush brick piers. There has been some patching and rebuilding to the northern part of the wall, and the eastern and south-eastern sections are partially obscured by growth.