Success NI, The Old Meeting House, 21 Railway Street, Lisburn, Co. Antrim, BT28 1XG

The Old Meeting House, 21 Railway Street, Lisburn

This is a detached former Quaker Meeting House, built in 1853 to designs by the prominent architect Thomas Jackson, and situated on Railway Street to the north of Market Square in the centre of Lisburn. It is a symmetrical, three-bay, two-storey building, rectangular on plan and facing east. The building was renovated and restored around 2008 and is now in use as a training and development centre. It sits within a conservation area and retains a largely intact interior of considerable quality, despite its conversion to office use in recent years.

Exterior

The roof is hipped and covered in natural slate, with roll-moulded lead ridges and three rendered, profiled chimneystacks fitted with octagonal clay pots. Rainwater goods are replacement plastic, discharging to timber boxed eaves. The walling is painted, ruled and lined render with a projecting plinth course, a render eaves course, and rusticated render quoins; the north and south side elevations are left unpainted. All window openings are segmental-headed, fitted with painted masonry sills and single-pane timber sash windows with ogee horns; some of the glazing is original cylinder glass.

The symmetrical front (east) elevation is five windows wide across two storeys. The central door opening has an architrave surround set on plinth blocks with a raised cornice above. The original double-leaf timber panelled doors feature bolection mouldings and are flanked by matching side panels, forming a quadripartite arrangement with a plain overlight. The doors open directly onto a concrete step to the street.

The south side elevation is built approximately one metre from the neighbouring building, leaving a narrow passageway between them. This elevation contains two segmental-headed door openings: the easternmost retains its original timber plank door, while the central opening has been fitted with replacement double-leaf hardwood glazed doors, though its original overlight survives. The rear west elevation is abutted by a later building and is not visible.

The two-storey north side elevation, six windows wide, fronts onto the former burial ground. All windows match those of the front elevation, with the exception of a taller segmental-headed stairhall window at the centre, which contains a 2-over-1 timber sash. Below this is a segmental-headed door opening fitted with a replacement timber glazed door.

Setting and Burial Ground

Running along the north elevation is an elevated area containing uniform stone grave markers enclosed by stone kerbing. The remainder of the burial ground has the appearance of a lawn with random stone grave markers scattered across it. The burial ground is enclosed to the street by a tall rendered wall. The Society of Friends sold the building in 1995 but continues to own the burial ground.

Materials: natural slate roof; plastic rainwater goods; ruled and lined render walling; timber sash windows.

Historical Background

The site has been in continuous Quaker use from the late 17th century until 1995, making it one of the earliest Friends' meeting places in Ireland. Quakerism was founded in England by George Fox in the late 1640s and spread rapidly during the early 1650s. William Edmundson, a soldier in Cromwell's army who had settled in Lurgan after demobilisation, encountered George Fox and other Quakers on a visit to England and established the first Friends' meeting in Ireland in 1654. Following an encounter with William Edmundson in 1655, John Shaw of Lisnagarvey established a Friends' meeting in his home at a place known as 'Broad Oak', making Lisburn meeting one of the first in Ireland.

A meeting house was first built on the present site in 1674, on land that had formed the orchard of George Gregson, a merchant and prominent Quaker. This building survived the fire that destroyed Lisburn in 1707, though it was replaced in 1709, possibly having sustained some damage. That building was itself replaced in 1795. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe this earlier structure as "a plain, neat, commodious building," accessed by "a long, confined passage from the main street in the town," and note that its lower portion was the remnant of the pre-1707 structure. The Memoirs also remark that "no other congregation in Lisburn [is] more respectable in garb." The building is listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828–40 as 'Quakers Meeting House', valued at £12 12s, and appears uncaptioned on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–3.

The present meeting house was built in 1853 and incorporates parts of the earlier structure. Thomas Jackson had previously designed a Quaker Meeting House in Belfast in 1840, now demolished, which was very similar in appearance. The grandeur of the building owes a great deal to the patronage of the Richardson family, prominent Quakers and linen merchants. James Nicholson Richardson (1815–1899), son of the founder of J.N. Richardson Sons & Owden Ltd and co-founder of Richardson Brothers & Co. of Belfast, linen yarn merchants, settled at Lissue House near Lisburn around 1855 and subsequently employed Thomas Jackson to remodel that house. His brother Joseph Richardson, equally prominent at Lisburn Quaker meeting, also employed Jackson to design a new villa at Springfield at around the same time. Glenmore and Old Forge were remodelled by Jackson for other members of the Richardson family, making the Richardsons among Jackson's most significant patrons overall. A note in the Griffith's Valuation fieldbook written by James Richardson states: "The meeting house and caretaker's house are all the property of the Society of Friends please [for ever] no rent." Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 lists the 'Society of Friends Meeting House and Graveyard' at a value of £49 10s, with 10s for the graveyard. The meeting house dimensions are recorded as 16 × 26 × 2, with a shed of 12 × 2. A caretaker's house occupied by one John Graham is listed separately, valued at £7.

Annual Revision records show no significant changes until 1864, when a school house — identified by later researchers as a mission hall — was added to the north-west of the meeting house, valued at £19, with £1 for the garden. The present hall is a replacement of 1905. A corrugated iron Sunday School was added to the site in 1895 but does not appear in valuation records.

The meeting house was sold in 1995 for £100,000. The Society of Friends moved to a new building in the grounds of Friends School Lisburn in 1996. The building has since been restored and adapted for use by its current occupiers, including the installation of a glazed partition behind the balustrade to the gallery.