Listed Building: Sudbury Quaker Meeting House (275990)

Quaker Meeting House. Built in 1804 and extended in 1818, with later alterations including in 2012 an extension to the designs of Tricker Blackie Associates. A meeting house in Sudbury was built close to the site of the present building in 1669 or 1670 by Quakers who had been meeting in the town since at least 1664. Its replacement of 1710 was reported to be in a state of disrepair by 1801. The current meeting house was built in 1804 at a cost of £606, and a women’s business meeting room was added in 1818. There is an attached burial ground to the rear. The meeting house had a simple single-storey pedimented entrance which was enclosed in 1975 to provide new cloakrooms. This was taken down and a new, extended, structure added in 2012 to designs by James Blackie of Tricker Blackie Associates. Providing a lobby, toilets and other facilities, the extension and renovation works won an award from the Sudbury Society. MATERIALS: the main meeting room is in red brick laid to Flemish bond, with plain tile roof coverings. The former women’s business meeting room is in white brick laid to Flemish bond, with slate roof coverings. The extension of 2012 includes a glazed timber portico and entrance hall. PLAN: the single-storey meeting house is rectangular on plan in three main units, comprising from west to east the former women’s business meeting room, then the main meeting room. The entrance hall, with storage and cloakroom facilities, is to the south side. EXTERIOR: the meeting house is situated in the Quaker burial ground on Friars Street, oriented north-west to south-east (simplified in the following description to north-south). It is in close proximity to The Red House (Grade II*) and numerous Grade II-listed buildings to both sides of Friars Street including the Walls of Burial Ground of Friends Meeting House. The main meeting room in red brick laid to Flemish bond has a half-hipped roof with plain tile coverings, whilst the former women’s business meeting room, in white brick, has a lower level hipped roof, with slate coverings. The main elevation is to the west, comprising the glazed timber portico which provides the main entrance. From the portico, the single-storey entrance hall encloses the south elevation of the former women’s business meeting room and reaches part-way along the south elevation of the main meeting room. The main meeting room west elevation includes a window in the upper level that lights the gallery, whilst a ground-floor door in the east end of the south wall under a flat arch provides a fire exit. Its east elevation includes a sash window with side lights under a segmental arch. The north elevation of the main meeting room comprises three bays, each with a sash window, whilst the north elevation to the former women’s meeting room includes two windows lighting the kitchen and school room respectively. The north elevations form the boundary with the adjacent property. INTERIOR: the meeting house is divided into three principal spaces. The glazed double-leaf door of the portico leads into the entrance hall with storage and cloakrooms to the south side. The former women’s business meeting room, divided into a school room and a kitchen, is entered from the hall through a newly-inserted door placed centrally in the south wall. There is an eight-over-eight-light timber sash window to either side of the door, the wall having been external. The main meeting room is accessed via the east end of the entrance hall which opens into the ground floor space under the gallery. This space, lit by a window to the north wall, is enclosed by the plain panelled partition that rises to the gallery front above. The gallery stair to the north-west corner has a closed string with columnar newel post and stick balusters. A part-glazed double-leaf door to the centre of the partition leads into the meeting room. The meeting room has fixed benches to the north, west, and south walls and a panelled dado that is ramped up to the Elders’ stand extending the whole width of the east wall. The Elders’ stand comprises two tiers of fixed benches with short staircases at each end. The rear bench is provided with a handrail carried by the panelled front. The front bench has handrails arranged to form a central opening, carried on posts rising from the dias.