Two Meeting Houses awarded Historic England grants
'The funding, announced in October, will help remove eight buildings from the Historic England ‘Heritage at Risk’ register.'
Two historic Meeting houses have been awarded grants from the National Churches Trust. Kendal Meeting in Cumbria, which houses the Quaker Tapestry, has been awarded a grant of £132,337, while Marazion Meeting House in Cornwall has received £31,904.
The Meeting houses are two of fifteen historic buildings in the country to benefit from a recent £2 million award made by Historic England to the Trust to save important places of worship.
The funding, announced in October, will help remove eight buildings from the Historic England ‘Heritage at Risk’ register.
‘Keeping this wonderful building in good repair is very important,’ said Bridget Guest, the Quaker Tapestry’s general manager, who retires at the end of the year. ‘It means a “once in a century” job can go ahead, and last for another century. The original parallel pitched roofs, made of graduated Cumbrian slate, will be refurbished along with the lead valley and gable end chimneys.’
The Grade 2* Listed Georgian building was designed by local architect Francis Webster in 1816 as a purpose-built Quaker Meeting house.
The new roof will bring energy and nature conservation benefits too, say local Friends. Breathable underfelt and other ventilation measures will address condensation issues and solar panels are planned. Bat boxes will accommodate lone male pipistrelle bats.
The work will also safeguard an important feature in the roof: the original winding gear which raised screens that divided the large ground floor room in two, a distinctive feature of older Quaker Meeting houses. The total cost of the work, which has just begun, is £366,000. Much of the income has been raised from local Quaker funds, other grants and donations.
Mike Berris, convenor of the premises committee for Marazion Meeting, told the Friend that refurbishing the building is costing £147,000, with the help of ten other funders. This was partly secured after advertising an appeal in the Friend. The project includes a new roof and substantial repairs to its historic windows. ‘Friends have been very generous. We achieved full funding within ten months,’ he said.
The 1688 Meeting house closed in October for refurbishment and is expected to re-open in spring 2022. ‘We’ve done a lot of soul searching.’ Mike Berris added. ‘It’s a big issue, isn’t it, whether we should spend it on the building or elsewhere? We had a Meeting for Clearness to come up with a proposal. The Meeting house is near St Michael’s Mount and gets a lot of visitors.’
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