Friends’ Meeting House, Park Street, Hillsborough, Co. Antrim, BT26 6AL

Friends' Meeting House, Park Street, Hillsborough

A single-storey stone Quaker Meeting House built in 1836, set within its own walled grounds on the south side of Park Street. This building is notable for the remarkable intactness of both its exterior and interior, retaining the simple, modest detailing typical of its style and period, and representing an important part of Hillsborough's historical development.

The building is rectangular on plan, free-standing with a single bay, and faces north. It is constructed of snecked coursed rubble basalt walling with rough-hewn quoins, with uncoursed work to the rear and side elevations. The pitched natural slate roof is finished with black clay ridge tiles, and has a single stone chimneystack at the west end with cement parged verges. Cast-iron guttering on steel brackets is fitted to a redbrick eaves course, with cast-iron downpipes attached using iron brackets.

The principal north elevation is three windows wide, with an off-centre square-headed door opening formed in redbrick with rendered plinth blocks and an original flat-panelled timber door with iron furniture. The window openings are square-headed with flush rendered reveals, redbrick surrounds, and masonry sills. All windows are original 6/6 timber sash windows with cylinder glass. The east gable is blank, with cement render to the upper half (recently removed from the lower half); the west gable is blank with exposed stone walling. The rear elevation is four windows wide in a symmetrical composition.

The setting comprises a square plot enclosed by tall rubblestone walls, laid out in grass with concrete footpaths and a small number of plain stone and marble upstanding grave-markers. A two-storey rendered caretaker's cottage stands adjacent to the entrance at the northwest corner of the site. Access is via a pair of sheeted timber gates on tall rendered piers to Park Street. A burial ground occupies the rear of the property.

This building was erected to replace an earlier Friends' Meeting House in Small Park, which had been built in 1797 and was 45 feet long and 25 feet broad. The original site was vacated in the mid-1830s when Small Park was enclosed into private lands for the Marquis of Downshire. An Indenture of Lease dated 8 February 1836 records that the Marquis of Downshire undertook to build the new meeting house at his own expense on Park Street as a replacement, with the same rent of 5 Shillings per annum as the old site. The Marquis also granted the Hillsborough Quakers access to the enclosed old burial ground through a gate in the park walls for their exclusive use. The new Meeting House was registered in 1841. Griffith's Valuation records it as 'friends meeting house, office and burial grounds' covering one rood and 35 perches, valued at £10. The building was slightly larger than its predecessor due to the inclusion of a central corridor, a new design feature of the time.

The burial ground at the Park Street site is marked with grave-stones dating from 1869 to 1971, reflecting the Quaker practice of not using headstones at earlier burial sites. The caretaker's cottage on the site was renovated in 1983. The building remains well maintained, though in recent years it has been seldom used. An annual visit through the 'Quaker Gate' on the Dromore Road maintains the right of way to the old burial ground in Small Park.