Building record 3884/0/184 - Friends Meeting House, St. John Street

Friends meeting house. Datestone 1819. Ironstone ashlar with slate roof. 2-unit plan. Single storey. 4-window range of sash windows with plain arch heads and intersecting glazing bars. Window to right of centre has later 19th century porch below. Pair of 8-panelled doors, flanked by wood columns and plain wooden pediment over. Hipped roof with brick stack at end.

{1} Friends meeting house. Datestone 1819. Ironstone ashlar with slate roof. 2-unit plan. Single storey. 4-window range of sash windows with plain arch heads and intersecting glazing bars. Window to right of centre has later C19 porch below. Pair of 8-panelled doors, flanked by wood columns and plain wooden pediment over. Hipped roof with brick stack at end. Datestone above window to left of centre. Single-unit extension to right has C19 panelled door and sash window with glazing bars. Rear elevation similar with some later C19 extensions.

{3} Substantial stone building erected in 1819, simple construction with 4 large windows forming the only form of decoration on the building. Burial ground adjacent. The building is still in use by the Quakers. Adjacent to the chapel is an early 20th century building marked 'Quaker House'. There is also a Sunday School building (now Salem Hall) on Salem Lane to the rear of the meeting house, but this is more likely to belong to the Congregational Church on High Street.

{4} It has walls of squared ironstone and a hipped slated roof. The north front has a small pedimented porch and square datestone with moulded cornice. The interior is divided into two rooms by an entrance-passage between screens, the larger east room has a dado of reeded panelling, wall benches with shaped ends and a stand against the end wall. A stand in the west room has been removed. Table in east room, dated 1667.

{5} Built in 1819. A single storey heated room was later added to the west end and in 1903 a small toilet block was added at the rear of the building. In 1991 the western meeting room was adapted to provide a smaller meeting room and kitchen on the ground floor with another meeting room on a new first floor.

{6} Undated photo;

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 8/140 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> 1986, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), G04 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN100394.

<3> Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Wellingborough (Industrial), (unchecked) (Digital archive). SNN100290.

<4> The Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, 1986, Nonconformist Chapels and Meeting-Houses: Northamptonshire & Oxfordshire, p. 152 (Report). SNN2902.

<5> Burton, N., 2016, Friends Meeting House, Wellingborough: Historic Building Record, January 2016, p. 3 (Report). SNN110525.

<6> Photographs of buildings in Wellinborough (Photographs). SNN115387.

Record last edited

Sep 6 2023 10:48AM