Farfield Friends Meeting House

Farfield Friends Meeting House
Farfield Friends Meeting House
Location	Near Addingham, West Yorkshire, England
Coordinates	53.9621°N 1.8855°W / 53.9621; -1.8855
OS grid reference	SE 076 518
Built	1689
Built for	Quakers
Governing body	Historic Chapels Trust
Listed Building – Grade II*
Designated	25 January 1985
Reference no.	1199556
Location 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

• Grade II* listed buildings in West Yorkshire
• Listed buildings in Addingham
• List of chapels preserved by the Historic Chapels Trust

External links

Media related to Farfield Friends Meeting House at Wikimedia Commons

• Newspaper article about the title deed for the building