Friends’ Meeting House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Free-standing single-bay single-storey stone Quaker Meeting House, built c.1836. Rectangular on plan, facing north, set within its own walled grounds on the south side of Park Street with burial ground to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof, black clay ridge tiles, single stone chimneystack to west end and cement parged verges. Cast-iron guttering on steel brackets to redbrick eaves course and cast-iron downpipes attached with iron brackets. Snecked coursed rubble basalt walling with rough-hewn quoins, uncoursed to rear and side elevations. Square-headed window openings with flush rendered reveals, redbrick surrounds, masonry sills and original 6/6 timber sash windows with cylinder glass.

Principal north elevation is three windows wide with off-centre square-headed door opening formed in redbrick with rendered plinth blocks and original flat-panelled timber door with iron furniture.

East gable is blank with cement render to the upper half, having been recently removed from the lower half.

Rear elevation is four windows wide of a symmetrical composition.

West gable is blank with exposed stone walling.

Setting:
Set within a square plot enclosed by tall rubblestone walls and laid out in grass with concrete footpaths and a small number of plain stone and marble upstanding grave-markers. A two-storey rendered caretakers’ cottage is located adjacent to the entrance to the northwest corner of the site, while the entrance is via a pair of sheeted timber gates on tall rendered piers to Park Street.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Coursed and uncoursed rubble basalt
Windows Original 6/6 timber sash

Historical information

The Friend’s Meeting House in Park Street does not appear until the second edition of the Ordnance Survey Map for Hillsborough in 1858. This building and its adjoining graveyard replaced a previous site of an original Friend’s Meeting House in Small Park which appears on an 1803 plan of Hillsborough.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs state that the earlier meeting house belonging to the Society of Friends was a ‘plain, stone building 45 feet long and 25 feet broad ... built in 1797.’ The surveyor notes that the costs for the 1797 meeting house were raised by subscription by members of the society. This site was moved to accommodate the enclosing of Small Park into private lands for the Marquis of Downshire in the mid 1830s. The Townland Valuations of 1834 record that the old Meeting House was valued at £6. 14s. after one third of its value had been deducted. Griffith’s Valuation lists the new site as ‘friends meeting house, office and burial grounds’ which covered one rood and 35 perches and was valued at £10 for the single building. The Annual Revisions record no change in this value from 1864 to 1930.

David Butler states that in return for vacating the Small Park premises, Lord Hillsborough, the 3rd Marquis of Downshire, provided the Meeting with new premises on Park Street which were built in 1836 and registered in 1841 (Butler p. 163). An Indenture of Lease dated 8 February 1836 records that the Marquis of Downshire would ‘build at his own expense upon a parcel of ground ... on the south side of Park Street ... a proper meeting house in all respects as large and commodious as the present Meeting House.’ The rent for this new Meeting House was 5 Shillings per annum, the same rate as the old site. The Marquis of Downshire also promised to allow the Hillsborough Quakers access to the enclosed old burial ground through a gate in the park walls solely for their use. The new Meeting House was swiftly erected in 1836 and registered in 1841. Butler states that the new building was slightly larger than the old Meeting House due to the inclusion of a central corridor which was a new design feature of the time (Butler, p. 163).

In regards to the burial ground, as earlier Quakers did not use headstones, the older site in Small Park contains no headstones while the more recent burial ground in Park Street contains only 10 grave stones, the earliest of which are dated 1869 and the latest 1971. All of these gravestones have been copied (Gravestone inscriptions, pp ix – x, p.95).

A small cottage on the site used by the grounds caretaker was renovated in 1983 (Butler p. 163). The Friends Meeting House is well maintained, however, in recent years it has seldom been used, although the right of way into the Small Park burial ground is still upheld by an annual visit through the ‘Quaker Gate’ on the Dromore Road. The circumstances surrounding the removal of the old Meeting House and the compensation of the Hillsborough Quaker’s with a replacement building is an indication of the good relationship shared between the Society of Friends in Hillsborough and the Downshire family.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI VAL/1/B/344 A-B – Townland Valuations 1834
2. PRONI VAL/1/A/3/14 – Field Map 1834
3. PRONI D671/M/8/25 – Hillsborough Map c.1800
4. PRONI D671/M/8/57/1 – Hillsborough Illustrated Map 1803
5. PRONI OS/6/3/14/1 – First Edition OS Map 1833
6. PRONI OS/6/3/14/2 – Second Edition OS Map 1858
7. PRONI OS/6/3/14/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1902-1903
8. PRONI OS/6/3/14/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1919-1920
9. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/45A-C – Griffith’s Valuation 1856-64
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14A – Annual Revisions 1864-1879
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14B – Annual Revisions 1880-1889
12. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14C – Annual Revisions 1890-1908
13. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14D – Annual Revisions 1909-1928

14. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14E – Annual Revisions 1928-1930
15. PRONI D671/D/8/8/1/6 – Deed of Covenant (New Meeting House and Burial Ground at Hillsborough)

Secondary Sources

1. Barry, J., ‘Hillsborough: A parish in the Ulster plantation’ (3rd ed.), Belfast, Universities Press., 1982.
2. Butler, D., ‘The Quaker meeting houses of Ireland’ Dublin: Irish Friends Historical Committee, 2004.
3. ‘Gravestone Inscriptions: Vol. 18 Co. Down’ Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 1979.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
R. Age
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

Single-storey stone Quaker Meeting House, built c.1836 and set within its own walled grounds on the south side of Park Street. The simple modest detailing of this meeting house are typical of its style and date, all of which are retained both to the exterior and interior of this building. The extent of intactness which includes the setting, all external material finishes and fittings in addition to its remarkably intact interior, make this structure of particular note and an important part of the historical development of Hillsborough.