Pardshaw Quaker Meeting House, stable and schoolroom and walls to burial ground

A group of Quaker meeting buildings with associated burial ground, dating from 1729 to 1745, comprising a meeting house (1729), stable (1731), schoolroom (1745), and stone walls enclosing the burial ground. The complex has undergone minor alterations in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Materials and Construction

The meeting house and stable and school range are constructed of sandstone rubble finished in lime-wash, with dressed stone details. Both are roofed in graduated Cumbrian Greenslate, except for a section of modern Cumbrian slate on the stable. The meeting house has cast-iron rainwater goods and the school has a rebuilt brick chimney stack. The burial ground walls are of sandstone rubble.

Setting and Plan

The buildings occupy a rectangular sloping plan to the south-east of the village street. The meeting house forms an L-shaped composition with a large gabled meeting room and a smaller gabled meeting room attached to its rear, connected by a porch in the west angle. Adjacent is an L-shaped stable and a detached rectangular school linked by a rectangular covered passage. Attached sandstone rubble walls of irregular height define three sides of the burial ground.

Meeting House

The meeting house is a single-storey detached building beneath a steeply pitched roof with a single gable chimneystack. All window and door openings have plain, painted stone surrounds.

The north elevation features five renewed eight-pane sash and casement windows, the central one originally the main entrance to the large meeting room. The right gabled return has a pair of eight-pane fixed windows to the ground floor and a small window above within a chamfered surround. A lean-to porch extension contains a wide entrance fitted with double plank doors. Further right are a pair of windows with 18 panes—the left is an original sash window with thick glazing bars and the right is a fixed modern replacement. The left gabled return is largely blind but features a pair of two-light mullioned windows (possibly incorporating stone from the first meeting house) lighting the small meeting room. The rear elevation is blind.

The interior contains two distinct meeting rooms. A porch with a flagstone floor leads through a chamfered inner doorway with a heavy double-thickness door with strap hinges and original door furniture into the small meeting room. This full-height room retains its original layout with the stand against the south-west wall (renewed joinery) incorporating a fireplace with a stone chimneypiece. An original movable screen partition of hinged shutters with fielded panels forms the opposite wall—the upper shutters are top-hinged and secured by wrought-iron hooks, and the lower are bottom-hinged. The floor is boarded with original stone flags beneath, and there is a tongue-and-groove dado with painted plaster above. The room retains some unfixed historic pine benches. A second doorway opens into the large full-height meeting room with plain painted plaster walls and a 20th-century pine floor concealing the original floor. A stone fireplace is fitted with a multi-fuel stove. A small kitchen and timber sleeping platform over the stand have been inserted.

Stable and School Range

The stable has lime-washed walls and a 21st-century replacement roof structure. The east gable shows a two-phase blocked window and joist holes indicating a former loft floor. Wooden stalls for approximately ten horses with wide-plank pine-boarded partitions remain, most with attached front chains and some with mangers. Four stalls contain 20th-century inserted water closets and washing facilities.

The school retains its original simple plan of schoolroom and separate schoolmaster's room. The schoolmaster's room is entered by stone steps up to a boarded door of two wide planks and contains a corner chimney breast with a 19th-century arched cast-iron surround and 19th-century shelving. The schoolroom is entered through a crude segmental-headed entrance with a four-plank boarded door and has plainly painted walls, exposed ceiling beams, and several wooden and cast-iron coat hooks. A central narrow chimney breast with a stone and brick hob grate is accompanied by a wall cupboard and a boarded door into a water closet extension. The original large wooden fixed schoolroom table and benches remain in situ. A covered passageway separates the stable and school, spanning the full width of the building with entrances at either end. It has a stone flagged floor, lime-washed walls, cast-iron and wooden coat hooks, and retains part of the original timber roof structure to the western half.

Burial Ground

Low sandstone rubble walls of irregular height are attached to the north gables of the school and meeting house and enclose the burial ground on three sides. The wall flanking the village lane is the highest and has flat coping stones.