Friends Meeting House

Friends Meeting House, built 1845. Some very minor late-C20/early-C21 alterations.

MATERIALS: It is constructed of buff and red bricks, with dressings of brick, under a pitched roof clad in natural slate.

PLAN: The building is rectangular on plan and comprises large and small meeting rooms, with a first-floor gallery to the former, and ancillary rooms, including a kitchen and toilet facilities to the front of the building.

EXTERIOR: The meeting house fronts onto a narrow courtyard reached from the High Street by a passage. It is a two-storey building which faces north-west, with a stone plinth to the front and brick plinth to the side and rear. The front elevation has a central entrance with a pair of panelled doors beneath a pedimented timber canopy carried on decorative brackets, with a lamp over the doorway. The entrance is flanked by two segmental-headed openings with six-over-six small-paned timber sash windows and small windows beyond. At first-floor level are three matching segmental-headed sash windows and above this are a simple moulded stone cornice and a central oculus. The gable is pedimented. The side elevations contain no openings, and the north-east elevation has painted brickwork. The rear (south-east) elevation has two timber, top-hung casement windows and, to the left, is a segmental-headed doorway which is thought to have been added around 1900. There is an oculus in the apex of the gable.

INTERIOR: The large and small meeting rooms are adjacent to each other, with an L-shaped gallery over the small meeting room and entrance lobby. Three of the walls of the large meeting room have a tall panelled timber dado and plain plastered walls above this, while the fourth (north-west) side has a panelled screen broken by pilasters which contains vertical sliding shutters that open onto the small meeting room. On the opposite side of the room is a ministers’ stand with a panelled front, and there are perimeter benches to the other walls. Above the screen and continuing on the north side is a gallery with a panelled front. The gallery retains the original, unfixed benches and gas-light fittings. There is a moulded plaster cornice and the ceiling has a central ventilator roundel with acanthus ornament. From the entrance vestibule a timber panelled archway leads through to a small lobby containing the gallery staircase. This has a shaped, curving handrail and stick balusters. The small meeting room beyond the lobby has a blocked fireplace and a dado rail. There are also some late-C20 fitted cupboards. The joinery elsewhere includes six-panelled doors; several of which are modern replacements. A simple wooden ladder at gallery level provides access to the king-post roof.