Preston Patrick Quaker Meeting House with attached caretaker's house and associated gighouse/stable/schoolroom and burial ground walls

Preston Patrick Quaker Meeting House with attached caretaker's house and associated gighouse, stable, schoolroom and burial ground walls

A Quaker Meeting House built in 1869, with an attached caretaker's cottage and detached stable, gig house and schoolroom dating from the 1870s, all set within a burial ground enclosed by stone boundary walls.

The meeting house is constructed of local limestone rubble, rendered with stone dressings, and is roofed with Westmorland graduated slate, fitted with a metal ventilator and cast-iron rainwater goods. The attached caretaker's cottage is built of snecked limestone under a slate roof. The former gighouse, stable and schoolroom is of limestone rubble with stone dressings, also under slate.

The buildings occupy a rectangular plot bounded by stone walls. The meeting house is oriented east to west at the north end, with the cottage attached at right-angles to its east end. The burial ground, which is largely level but slopes upward to the south, contains a combined stable, gig house and schoolroom in its south-east corner facing the road.

The full-height meeting house features a rendered plinth and pitched roof with ventilator. Its three-bay main south elevation displays a pair of segmental-headed windows and a gabled porch with plain barge boards and a round-headed window; all windows have two-pane sliding sash frames with margin glazing. The main entrance is set in the east porch wall, fitted with a six-panelled door with strap hinges. A small mid-20th-century lean-to extension projects from the left of the porch. The left return contains a pair of small ground-floor windows and a window lighting the former gallery. The rear elevation has three windows matching those on the front.

The attached two-storey caretaker's cottage is set at right-angles to the meeting house's east elevation. It has two bays, quoins and plain barge boards beneath a pitched roof. Its main east elevation has a central gabled porch flanked by four-pane windows, with a pair of half-dormer windows to the first floor. The left return contains a similar four-pane window to each floor, whilst the right return has an attached lean-to extension with a ground-floor window.

The tall detached former gighouse, stable and schoolroom stands as a two-storey structure with prominent quoins beneath a half-hipped roof. Its main west elevation features a former central rectangular external stair turret, also quoined with a pyramidal roof and narrow rectangular windows to each face. To the left is an enlarged double opening retaining original long and short quoins to the right side, probably marking the original gighouse entrance, with a second tall entrance set to the right. The first floor has a pair of rectangular windows with modern casement frames. Similar window openings with modern casement frames appear on the first floor of the left return and rear elevation; the right return is blank.

Internally, the meeting house porch has a stone-flagged floor and stone stair rising to the former gallery. Six-panel doors open from the porch into the main meeting room and smaller meeting room. The main meeting room has a pine-boarded floor and pine tongue-and-grooved dado to the north and south walls, with plainly painted plaster above and cast-iron ventilators. At the east end stands a ministers' stand with 18th-century panelling behind, considered to be reused from the first meeting house, and a front rail of turned balusters. The west wall retains late-17th-century wainscot panelling below vertically sliding pine shutters with a central opening to the smaller meeting room fitted with double three-panel doors with ornate hinges.

The small ground-floor meeting room, now a kitchen, contains a blocked segmental-headed fireplace to the west wall and 20th-century kitchen fittings. Unfixed furnishings include an 18th-century table and 19th-century benches. The former first-floor gallery, now enclosed as a small room, is entered through a six-panel door and contains a chimney breast, small panelled cupboard and exposed triple purlins. The gighouse retains a cobbled floor and whitewashed rubble walls. The remainder of this building has been converted to offices with modern interior throughout. The former caretaker's house was not inspected internally.

The plot is enclosed by low stone walls with alternating flat and regularly-spaced upright coping stones. The front features curved walls with tapering rectangular stone gate piers.