Former Quaker Meeting House

Former Quaker meeting house, now a community centre. Built in 1795-6, probably by Michael Searles; extended and altered in the early C19; mid-C20 alterations; and further alterations and extensions in the late C20.

MATERIALS It is constructed of brick, which is mostly painted, under a hipped roof covered in corrugated sheeting, previously clad with plain tiles and stone slate verges.

PLAN The meeting house is orientated roughly north to south, with the original entrance front facing south onto Prosperous Street. It has a rectangular plan of three bays, with late-C20 extension to the east on the site of one of two former burial grounds, and to the south; these two extensions are excluded from the listing. The site of the west burial ground is now (2021) a sports’ court/car park.

EXTERIOR It is a tall, single-storey building of three bays, with a moulded eaves cornice (covered over in places) and several courses of quoin stones to the south-east and north-east corners. The west side of the building has been strengthened with two brick buttresses (internally there is a tie bar at the north-east corner), and it appears to have undergone some rebuilding since the quoins to the north-west and south-west corners and the impost band which are present on an historic photograph do not survive. This elevation has three round-arched openings with moulded architraves, and each has a late-C20 timber window with reinforced glazing and modern metal security grilles. The window to the left-end bay has been truncated by modern emergency exit doors. A vertical line in the brickwork between the central and southern bays marks the extent of the late-C18 building. The south and east elevations are obscured by late-C20 extensions, but the original window openings in the east elevation, are visible within the building. They have been blocked and a doorway inserted beneath the central window.

INTERIOR Since the 1970s access to the meeting house is from the late-C20 east extension. It is understood to retain an early-C19 plaster-vaulted ceiling though it is not visible due to a modern suspended ceiling. There are no other historic fittings.

Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that the mid-C20 extensions to the east and south are not of special architectural or historic interest.