A Friend at Swarthmoor
An Irish Friend, David O’Donoghue, ponders his work as a resident Quaker volunteer in the heart of 1652 country
There is perhaps no better place to mix past ghosts and future hopes than at Swarthmoor Hall, the so-called ‘cradle’ of Quakerism. Nestling in Cumbria, on the edge of England’s Lake District, the Tudor manor (built in 1586) holds a cherished place in the history of English Quakers. It was to this impressive house, then home to Thomas Fell and his wife Margaret, that George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, came in June 1652. He was a twenty-seven-year-old travelling preacher seeking an alternative path to the established Church of England and other Christian churches.
In that turbulent era, just after the civil war in England, George Fox was sheltered by a local judge, Thomas Fell. Unlike her husband, Margaret Fell became an early convert to the Quaker cause and made a significant contribution to the development of the new Quaker movement. In 1669, eleven years after the judge’s death, she married George Fox.
Part of my duties as a summer Friend in Residence at Swarthmoor included opening up the Hall’s numerous rooms on three floors. Whenever I approached George Fox’s room I could not help imagining a gentleman clad in seventeenth century clothes and laying the full length of his bed. But, of course, the room was always empty except for some old Bibles, a 1694 first edition of George Fox’s Journal (published three years after his death), a trunk and the famous folding bed, which was carried along the east coast of America on horseback during his travels to the New World from 1671 to 1673.
Meetings for Worship are still held in the ground floor room adjoining Thomas Fell’s study, from where he is said to have followed proceedings through an open door. The ground floor also houses a small library. The floor above contains several bedrooms, while the top floor has an archive, along with an attic where parliamentary troops are said to have sought refuge after a skirmish with royalist forces.
(For my part, having to say anything positive about Oliver Cromwell – to be fair, I didn’t have to – would have been a problem, given that his forces had wiped out half my ancestors at Glenflesk Castle in Kerry during his bloody forays in Ireland.)
Visitors can don an array of mock seventeenth century clothing while admiring the centrepiece, a 1541 Beck Bible that belonged to George Fox.
Friends in Residence at Swarthmoor Hall can expect to undertake a wide variety of tasks, from welcoming guests and attempting flower arrangements for Meeting for Worship to taking tours around the Hall. The latter duty was my favourite, despite some unforeseen challenges, such as when a group from the University of the Third Age (U3A) wanted to know what Quakerism meant ‘in a nutshell’! Terms including ‘silent worship of God’, ‘gender equality’ and ‘pacifism’ tripped off my tongue as I managed to field that query in a mad dash to the finishing line.
A minibus full of young Irish Friends were easier to deal with, not needing a blow-by-blow account of Quaker history. But a town-twinning tour (English Lake District meets Italian equivalent) was a different kettle of fish. Luckily Swarthmoor’s renowned café boasts an Italian chef (Fabrizio from Pisa) – so we took it in turns to provide a bilingual visit.
It is something of a miracle that Swarthmoor Hall has survived for over four centuries. In the 1750s it drifted out of Quaker hands, and was only saved from destruction in 1912 when it was bought by Emma Clarke Abraham, a direct descendant of Thomas Fell’s daughter Rachel. She supervised extensive repairs. In 1951 the Religious Society of Friends purchased the building for £9,000. Today, Swarthmoor is embracing the twenty-first century.
As well as the original building, the site boasts sixteen bed-and-breakfast rooms and a conference centre that hosts weekend seminars. In addition, there are extensive gardens alongside a shop and a café/restaurant. There are also plans to further extend the premises by converting an adjoining barn. A bright future beckons for this Lake District gem.
