Friends celebrating the installation of the blue plaque. Photo: Courtesy of Alton Meeting.
Blue plaque for Alton Meeting
A plaque commemorating the second oldest Meeting house in the world that is still in use, in Hampshire
Alton Friends celebrated a blue plaque installed at their Meeting house last month.
The commemoration records that the building in Hampshire is the ‘second oldest [Meeting house] in the world that is still in use’, said the Quakers. ‘The Meeting house in Alton was built in 1672 well before the Act of Toleration was passed over a decade later in 1688/89. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there were many Quaker families prominent in the town including the Curtis and Crowley families. The town museum is still known as the Curtis Museum in memory of William Curtis who was so active in establishing further education and learning within the town.’
