About the Meeting House
A short history of our Meeting House based on information from 'The Quaker Meeting Houses of Britain' by David M. Butler, published in two volumes by Friends Historical Society in 1999 (available in the Meeting House library):
Though we do not know when it started, there was certainly a meeting by 1673, for which premises were bought or built in 1697.
The present meeting house was bought in 1866 for £775. It was built as a Masonic Hall by the architect William Wilkins. For the Masons, the light coming in from the two handsome lanterns in the roof was sufficient, and there were no real windows in the front facade, just "blind" (stone-filled) recesses where the windows would have been. There was also a large and imposing blind doorway with a masonic number over it (since removed and replaced with a plain stone).
The Masons left in 1841. The building was then used by others including a Baptist congregation as a Bethesda Chapel, for whom windows were inserted in the back wall. The formerly blind windows on York Street were opened up.
Quaker Meetings can be held anywhere, and do not depend on there being a building of a particular shape, size or type.