1688 Meeting House reopens
‘It was a minor miracle how £147,000 was raised to pay for it and we want to thank everyone who has been so very generous in supporting us.'
Marazion – the oldest Meeting House in Cornwall – is reopening after building works. The Grade 2*-listed building has had its roof replaced, as well as its lintel, shutters and window frames preserved, thanks to the generous donations of Friends.
Marazion Quakers told the Friend: ‘It was a minor miracle how £147,000 was raised to pay for it and we want to thank everyone who has been so very generous in supporting us. Applications to an impressive list of grant-making trusts were successful, and the remainder came from local residents and from every corner of the Quaker world.’
Jean Berris, treasurer of Marazion Meeting, said: ‘Part of the funding raised was by way of a highly successful Marazion Meeting House Appeal which was launched through a leaflet campaign in the Friend.’
According to local Quakers, the Meeting house, built in 1688, was ‘actually erected a whole year before the Act of Toleration made it legal – and safe – to build a place of worship for dangerous non-conformists’.’
‘George Fox, the founder of Quakerism visited [Marazion] “Market Jew” three times. On the first occasion he was treated as a foreigner with great suspicion by the mayor and later arrested and held in a dungeon in Launceston jail for nearly nine months.’
According to the Meeting, perhaps the most famous local Quaker to have passed through Marazion is the pharmacist William Cookworthy ‘who discovered china clay on Tregonning Hill and developed the industry throughout Cornwall that still exists today’.
Marizion Meeting will hold a celebration open day on 2 July.
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