Building record 7198/29/1 - Friends Meeting House, Northall Street

Built in 1869 and enlarged in 1903. Further modifciation and extensions added in the 1980s and 2001

{1} Brick built meeting house dating form late C19th. Originally plain rectangular plan, possibly with entrance through brick porch. Extended to the western side probably in early C20th to provide new entrance and ancillary area. Two principal rooms, the first, at the front, is the meeting room (for prayer) with a larger main conference room to the rear. Originally one space now subdivided by timber and glass screen (see slide no. 10). Main room also subdivided from the kitchen and ancillary/ coffee room by glass screen (slide no. 8). Not clear if this area (slide no. 9) part of original build or not. Main room contains elders benches. Plainly furnished and decorated as anticipated.

{4} Friends or Quakers Meeting House, Northall Street. Uncertain when the first Friends Meeting House was erected in the town, but a tenancy to a property was given to a group of Friends in 1735. It comprises a small, brick building with an attached burying ground. The meeting house was re-built in 1868 and enlarged in 1905. Red brick construction which still appears to be in use for the same purpose. The only remaining buidling on Northall Street from the 1926 map. Film 4, photo 1.

{5} A site in Northall (now Northall Street) was acquired in 1732 for a burial ground, but it also contained a cottage which may have been used as a meeting house. A new stone meeting house was built on this site in 1769 but in 1869 it was replaced by a larger brick meeting house, partly on the same foundations. This building contained a main and women's meeting room. As Adult School work developed at the end of the century the meeting house was enlarged in 1903 to provide an additional room and ancillary spaces including a kitchen with a new entrance west of the original main front. Some internal refurbishment was carried out in the mid 1980s. More substantial alterations were made in 2001 when the original 1860s porch was removed and a new room doubling as an entrance lobby and library was added to the south west corner of the building. The architect for this work was Maurice Walton.

The meeting house of 1869 was a long rectangle on plan with a porch at the north end. This is still the main body of the building, with walls of red brick laid in English bond and a pitched roof is covered in welsh slate. On the west side the roof is swept down over the full-length single-storey addition made in 1903, which also has red brick walls, with a long dormer window in the roof slope. The entrance lobby/library addition at the south west corner is largely glazed, with a pitched hipped slated roof. The original main (south) front to the road has a single window to the right, the modern entrance lobby to the left, and a stone quatrefoil in the gable. The original brick porch below the quatrefoil has been removed. The east side wall is wholly plain, apart from a single dash window towards the southern end. The north wall has two sash windows, extended downwards with new sills, presumably when the minister's stand within was removed.

Internally, the original 1903 side entrance is preserved and opens into a tiled corridor with toilets and kitchen opening off it. The main meeting room at the north end of the building and has a timber panelled dado, ramped up at the north end for the stand, which has been removed. The walls are plain-plastered, with a moulded timber cornice and a coved plaster ceiling. Full-height, part-glazed timber folding screens on the south and west sides open to the former women's meeting room and another smaller room.

<1> Ellison, M., 1999, SMR Report Form, (checked) (SMR Report Form). SNN49156.

<2> Stimpson Walton Bond, 1996, Friends Meeting House: Survey As Existing, (checked) (Plan). SNN59779.

<3> Ellison, M., 1999, Friends Meeting House, Kettering, (checked) (Slides). SNN112060.

<3> Ellison, M., 1999, Friends Meeting House, Kettering, (checked) (Photographs). SNN52322.

<4> Ballinger J., 1999, Northamptonshire Extensive Urban Survey: Kettering (Industrial), (checked) (Digital archive). SNN100283.

<5> Burton, N., 2016, Friends Meeting House, Kettering: Historic Building Record, January 2016, (checked) (Report). SNN110526.

Record last edited

Nov 24 2016 10:46AM