Capel Quaker Meeting House and Cottage

Capel Quaker Meeting House and Cottage

A Quaker meeting house built in 1724, with later alterations, and an attached 18th-century cottage with later alterations and extensions.

MATERIALS

The buildings are constructed of dressed stone with red brick stretchers and blue headers laid in Flemish bond. The roofs and wall coverings are of clay hanging tiles and other clay tile coverings.

PLAN AND SETTING

The buildings form an L-shaped plan with a small lean-to porch set in the angle between the two wings. The two-storey cottage forms a cross wing running north-west to south-east, attached to the meeting house which runs north-east to south-west. The complex stands on the north side of The Street, set back from the road. Quaker burial plots are located to the front and rear of the buildings.

EXTERIOR: MEETING HOUSE

The meeting house is oriented east-west with a gabled roof and a lean-to porch to the western bay of the south front. A small flat-roofed rear extension is also present. The gable and pentice roofs are covered with clay tiles, and the gable ends are tile-hung.

The south front has a stone plinth and comprises three bays. From right to left these consist of two timber casement windows under segmental arches, which rise to the full height of the meeting room, and the meeting room entrance door accessed through the porch. The porch contains a double-leaf door with side-lights. A small two-light window above the porch formerly lit the meeting room gallery. Blocked openings in the south front indicate the original positions of both the entrance and a former window. A weathered stone between the eastern bays may have carried an inscription.

The east wall is blank, with a blocked window under a segmental arch. The rear (north) elevation is largely obscured at ground floor level by a rendered flat-roofed kitchen and toilet block. This extension contains, from left to right, two small windows lighting the toilets and a larger kitchen window, with entrance doors in its side walls. Above, in the upper part of the meeting house wall, are from left to right two short pivoted windows and a larger first floor window positioned over a rear door and ground floor window in the western bay. The west wall of the meeting house is largely obscured by the attached cottage.

EXTERIOR: COTTAGE

The cottage is oriented north-south as a cross wing to the meeting house. Its two-storey gabled south front includes a ground floor four-light square bay window below a first floor three-light casement window. In both windows, the lights are subdivided into six subsidiary lights by glazing bars. The first floor is tile-hung.

The irregular west elevation comprises, from right to left, the blind return wall of the cottage's two-storey south bay, a flat-roofed and tile-hung dormer to the centre, and a single-storey lean-to remainder of the original 18th-century cottage. The dormer bay contains, from right to left, two ground floor windows and an entrance door, with one first floor window above. The cottage's rear (north) wall includes a three-light casement window in the lean-to. A chimney stack rises from the west wall of the gabled front and above the lean-to. The gabled roof to the south and the lean-to pentice roof are covered with clay tiles.

INTERIOR

The front porch contains a disused plank door and a leaded two-light window beside the meeting house entrance door, which leads into the meeting room. The meeting room's west wall is formed by a full-height timber partition with alternate rows of fixed and moveable panels. This partition formerly divided the main meeting room from the women's business room and gallery; those latter spaces now form part of the adjoining cottage. The remaining walls of the meeting room are fitted with dado panelling. The east wall incorporates the Elders' stand, consisting of two fixed benches on a dais, accessed by one step to the north and two to the south. The meeting room has a flat ceiling. The door in the west bay of the north wall leads to the burial ground at the rear. The rear extension contains a small kitchen to the west and two toilets to the east. The cottage interior was not inspected.