The Pendle Hill study centre in Philadelphia. Photo: Jenny Firth Cozens.
Six weeks at Pendle Hill
Jenny Firth Cozens describes her time at the Quaker study centre in Philadelphia
I recognized immediately in Pendle Hill a kind of oasis in the wasteland of the spirit… I went there again and again not only to join in the dialogue between the confused modern soul and the ultimate meaning of life, but to be encouraged by the conviction that in Pendle Hill one already had, as it were, a small pilot scheme of the essential community to come.
- Laurens van der Post
Pendle Hill is a Quaker study centre on the outskirts of Philadelphia, started in 1930 to prepare students for service around the world and especially in Europe after the second world war. Nowadays people stay there as Friends-in-residence (FiRs), or to study (Pendle Hill and Swarthmore College nearby have exceptional libraries), or just as sojourners – coming for a few days to rest, think or soak up the knowledge and experience of life there. Outside groups come for meetings and courses, or just for bed and breakfast.
