Settle Quaker Meeting House

Settle Quaker Meeting House

This meeting house was built in 1678 with significant later alterations, chiefly between 1729 and 1732 and again in the second half of the 19th century. A single-storey extension was added in 2004 to designs by the architects Mason Gillibrand.

The building is constructed of roughly coursed rubble stone with sandstone dressings and has gabled slate roofs. It forms an irregular block oriented north to south, comprising the original two-storey meeting house and an attached Institute building. A short chimney ridge stack rises from the meeting house north gable. The 2004 extension, rectangular in plan and single-storey, is linked to the south-west corner of the meeting house by a partially-glazed connecting passage.

The main east front has four bays. On the ground floor, three recessed chamfered square-headed stone window openings contain four-light timber casement windows, with a gabled stone porch between the second and third bays. Above a string course, the two right-hand bays have two shorter, irregularly placed four-light timber casement windows at first floor level. A built-up window opening exists at first floor level towards the south end. The porch entrance has a cambered timber lintel over the outer doorway, while the inner chamfered stone door surround carries a timber lintel with the date 1678 carved in relief above two panels.

The meeting house north gable, which faces Kirkgate, contains two small two-light casement windows at first floor level and a small two-light sash window lighting the internal gallery staircase. The rear elevation shows the two-storey Institute's gabled west wall with two six-over-six sash windows and a gable end chimney stack. The side wall of the rear extension includes a four-panelled door with a transom light bearing the word INSTITUTE, approached up four stone steps from Kirkgate. The meeting house south gable end has a blocked central window at ground floor level and two six-over-six sash windows above set in deep square-headed reveals. The 2004 stone-built extension is attached by a partially-glazed link to the south end of the Institute.

Inside, a 17th-century panelled meeting house door leads into a passage extending the full length of the northern end, with a screen of re-set oak wainscot panelling. A centrally-placed door provides access into the meeting room, while a door in the west end leads to the Institute wing.

The meeting room has a plain panelled dado below plastered walls. The Elders' stand occupies the south wall, with late 18th-century fielded panelling at the back and sides incorporating a fixed bench, and a 19th-century panelled front with a moulded hand-rail and turned stanchions and finials. A deep gallery occupies the first-floor space at the north end, carried on the original wooden beam supported by two hand-cut circular oak columns, with two boxed-in steel-reinforced wooden cross-beams supporting the gallery floor. The gallery front includes hinged oak shutters with fielded panelling. The meeting room has a flat ceiling.

The gallery, which features a 19th-century fire place on its north wall, is accessed via a new staircase at the north end of the Institute wing. The Institute now comprises a full-height library space. Recent remodelling included lowering the floor level; a chimneypiece is retained high on the west wall. A hallway to the south leads into the 2004 extension.