Misplaced Pages

Farfield Friends Meeting House

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Former Quaker meeting house in Addingham, England

Farfield Friends Meeting House
Farfield Friends Meeting House
LocationNear Addingham,
West Yorkshire, England
Coordinates53°57′44″N 1°53′08″W / 53.9621°N 1.8855°W / 53.9621; -1.8855
OS grid referenceSE 076 518
Built1689
Built forQuakers
Governing bodyHistoric Chapels Trust
Listed Building – Grade II*
Designated25 January 1985
Reference no.1199556
Farfield Friends Meeting House is located in West YorkshireFarfield Friends Meeting HouseLocation in West Yorkshire

Farfield Friends Meeting House is a Quaker meeting house no longer regularly in use by a Quaker meeting and now owned by the Historic Chapels Trust. It is located some 2 miles (3 km) north of the village of Addingham, West Yorkshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.

History

In 1666, Anthony Myers of Farfield Hall, Addingham, provided a plot of land to be used as a Quaker burial ground. Twenty-three years later, in 1689, the Act of Toleration was passed giving the right to Nonconformists to build places of worship. In that year Anthony Myers gave a further adjacent plot of land for building a meeting house; the construction of this was completed during the same year.

Architecture and furnishings

The small meeting house is typical of rural Quaker meeting houses of the period, poignant in its simplicity. It is constructed in stone rubble with ashlar dressings and has a stone slate roof. The building is in a single storey with three bays. There is one door, and the three windows have mullions; at the corners of the building are quoins. The interior consists of a single cell. At its east end is a dais with settles and turned balusters.

External features

Chest tombs

In the graveyard to the northeast of the meeting house are five joined chest tombs to the Myers family dated between 1687 and 1737. They are designated as a Grade II listed building. This style of tomb is unusual in Quaker burial grounds as it was considered to be ostentatious and was later discouraged by the movement.

Present day

The building was owned by the Historic Chapels Trust who have restored it and aim to preserve it in perpetuity, as part of the physical evidence of British religious life. It is now owned by the Friends of Friendless Churches, who took ownership of the site in December 2024. It can be visited during daylight hours. Three car parking spaces and picnic area are adjacent. A long-distance footpath, the Dales Way, passes through the grounds. In 2018 Historic England placed the meeting house in the top ten of the Faith and Belief category of its A History of England in 100 Places project.

See also

References

  1. ^ Historic England, "Friends Meeting House, Addingham (1199556)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 14 May 2011
  2. "Plaque 13 The Farfield Meeting House". addinghamcivicsociety.org.uk. Addingham Civic Society. 2024. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
  3. "About Farfield Friends Meeting House". friendsoffriendlesschurches.org.uk. Friends of Friendless Churches. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
  4. Skidmore, Chris (2015). "Farfield Friends Meeting House" (PDF). quakersinyorkshire.org.uk. Quakers in Yorkshire. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
  5. ^ Farfield Friends Meeting House, Historic Chapels Trust, retrieved 29 June 2010
  6. Historic England, "Five attached chest tombs to the Myers family 30 metres to the northeast of the Friends Meeting House, Addingham (1314231)", National Heritage List for England, retrieved 14 May 2011
  7. "Farfield Friends Meeting House". Friends of Friendless Churches. 13 December 2024. Retrieved 13 December 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. "100 Places: Faith & Belief". historicengland.org.uk. Historic England. 2018. Retrieved 5 December 2024.
  9. "Farfield Quaker Meeting House near Ilkley, West Yorkshire". historicengland.org.u. Historic England. 2018. Retrieved 5 December 2024.

External links

Media related to Farfield Friends Meeting House at Wikimedia Commons

Categories: