Former Quaker Meeting House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey former Quaker Meeting house constructed in c1905 from red clay brick with terracotta string courses, to the designs of Belfast Quaker, Joseph Chandler March. It is located in Portmore Street, a mixed development area, about 200m from the centre of Portadown, opposite the junction with Edward Street. The plan form is roughly rectangular with a two-storey canted bay to the East side and two extensions to the rear - one mid-twentieth century and the other dated 2005. The meeting house, located behind wrought and cast iron gates and railings shares the site with a caretaker’s house designed in an Arts and Crafts style.

Materials
Walling: red clay brick
Roof: natural slate
RWGs: uPVC
Windows: generally painted timber sliding sash with semi-circular heads – single glazed

The front elevation, set back from Portmore Street, faces North and comprises an ornate projecting timber porch, containing geometric coloured glass windows - with a semi-circular headed window either side and a Venetian window above. The porch was possibly added in 1912. The ground floor windows have coloured glass leaded lights and the first floor windows have barley sugar colonnettes in a classical style with composite capitals – probably cast iron. All lintels and sills are sandstone.

The West side elevation has single and paired round headed windows with similar detailing to the front elevation except that the lintels are red clay brick-on-end to match the general walling. A moulded terracotta string course at sill level ties the window openings together. The roof is double pitched natural slate and there is a metal ventilation cowl on the ridge.

The East side elevation is similar to the West except for the inclusion of a large two storey canted bay in the same materials - but with shallow segmental headed windows to the ground floor and square headed windows to the first.

At the rear is a flat roofed extension, built in 1963, from grey concrete bricks, on the site of the former coach house. Its windows and door are uPVC. A further flat roofed extension built in red clay brick, dated 2005, was added to the SE corner. Above the extensions in the rear wall of the main building can be seen a blocked up Venetian window opening - similar to that on the front elevation.

Also on the site and located to the West, on Portmore Street, but accessed from the grounds of the meeting house, is a dwelling - built slightly later than the meeting house. It is built in an Arts and Crafts style - is two storey with a red clay brick ground floor and a mainly roughcast first floor. Windows have been changed to top hung stained timber and the roof is finished with fibre cement slates.

Stretching across the whole of the site boundary to Portmore Street are wrought iron railings set over a low red brick wall and with two sets of gates in the centre supported on cast iron posts with pyramidal tops. The pillars are stamped ‘R J Boyd HENRY STREET BELFAST’. The rest of the site is finished in gravel, tarmac and grass.

Caretakers house
To the West of the meeting house but on the same site is a two storey caretaker’s house. L-shaped on plan with a red clay brick lower storey and a painted roughcast upper floor. Windows have been replaced with top hung stained timber but the panelled front door, protected by a small glazed timber porch is original. The roof is fibre cement slates.

Historical information

The Portadown Quaker Meeting was established in 1903, the Friends initially gathering in a rented room. Plans for a permanent purpose-built meeting house were put forward shortly afterwards. By the beginning of 1906 over £1,375 had been raised in support of this and work on the new building had commenced. It was completed in spring of that year at a cost of £1203.9.5, leaving enough money over for the construction of the adjacent dwelling house for a missioner / resident Friend. The meeting house opened for worship on 8 April 1906 and appears as an entry in the valuation book the following year. The dwelling house does not seem to have been completed until around 1910-11, as it is first detailed in the valuation book during the latter year. However, a member of the former congregation has stated that the dwelling (which he referred to as the 'caretaker’s house') was constructed a year after the meeting house and paid for from 1 penny subscriptions from each Quaker in the British Isles.

According to Quaker building historian, David Butler, the new meeting house was designed by Belfast Friend Joseph C. Marsh, who may also have worked on the dwelling house. It is not known whether he was a formally trained architect, however, as there is little record of him in connection to other works. Contemporary newspaper notices suggest he was an estate agent operating out of premises in Donegall Street, and who (in the early 1900s at least), also served as Secretary for the Royal Victoria Hospital’s Board of Management.

Butler states that the frontage of the building on to Portmore Street was ‘improved’ in 1912 and that the coach house to the rear was demolished in 1963 and ‘a small meeting room or class-room and kitchen’ built in its place.

The building remained in use until November 2014 when falling attendances at meetings forced its closure.

References – Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL12B/14/13C (1901-10)
2 PRONI OS8/41/3 OS town plan of Portadown (1906)
3 PRONI VAL12B/14/13F (1911-21)

Secondary sources
1 Butler, David, ‘The Quaker Meeting Houses of Ireland’, (Irish Friends Historical Committee, 2004), pp.185-86
2 ‘Portadown Times’, 2 December 2014 [available online]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
Z. Rarity
S. Authenticity
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Two storey former Quaker Meeting house constructed in 1905 from red clay brick with terracotta string courses, to the designs of a Belfast Quaker, Joseph Chandler March. It is located in Portmore Street, a mixed development area, about 200m from the centre of Portadown, opposite the junction with Edward Street. This meeting house retains almost all of its early twentieth century detailing both externally and internally and is one of the finest buildings in this part of Portadown. Of particular interest is the ornate entrance porch, the cast iron barley sugar colonnettes separating the paired windows and the timber and timber and cast iron roof trusses. It has both architectural interest as a fine example of an early twentieth century Quaker meeting house and is also of social interest to the local community. Its interest is further enhanced by the wrought and cast iron gates and railings and the survival of the Arts and Crafts style caretaker’s house on the same site.