Friends old meeting house

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small former Quaker meeting house of c.1796 situated just to the S of the Belfast Road, roughly half a mile NW of Newtownards.

The building is rectangular with an apsidal porch, rubble walls and a Bangor blue slated gable roof.

The entrance door is on the N ‘face’ of the porch and consists of a timber sheeted door with sandstone dressings and keystone with date ‘1796’ inscribed upon it. There is a semicircular headed window opening on the W ‘face’ of the porch, now with a modern timber frame. There is a doorway like recess on the S ‘face’ of the porch.

The two main (N and S) walls of the building each have two windows as porch.

On the E facing gable there is a high level flat arch window, with frame much as before. Stonework suggests that the original window opening may have been directly below this. This building is now used as an all purpose hall for art classes, some sports, exhibitions etc.

Small now disused graveyard to E. Modern leisure centre to S.

Historical information

This small Quaker meeting house was built in c.1796 (though it may not have been finally completed until c.1806), on land belonging to Thomas Bradshaw of near by Milecross Lodge, himself a Quaker. The church remained in use until c.1830. During the twentieth century (at least) the church was a ruin but was restored in c.1984 and acquired by Ards Borough Council. It is now part of near by Kiltonga leisure centre and is used as a hall for various educational and leisure activities.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.654/LE31/1-3 Londonderry Papers, leases relating to Milecross townland, 1726-1852. [Milecross came into possession of the Bradshaw family in 1726.]
2 PRONI MIC 99 ‘Volume containing the out-correspondence, accounts and memoranda of Robert Bradshaw of Dublin and Milecross near Newtownards, Co. Down’, 1784-92. [This microfilmed volume contains
references to Quaker affairs.]
3 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps 1st ed. 1833/4, Co. Down sheet 5.
4 PRONI VAL 1B/322 1st valuation, Newtowards, c.1835.
5 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st rev. 1858-60, Co. Down sheet 5.
6 PRONI 2nd valuation, Newtownards, c.1863.

Secondary sources
1 'Ulster Journal of Archaeology', 8 (Belfast 1902), pp.55-56.
2 'Archaeological survey of Co. Down' (HMSO 1966), p.346.
3 W. Edgar ‘Notes on the history of three Newtownards churches’ in 'Ards Historical Society Publication No.2' (Newtownards 1980), pp.52-59.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Small, rubble built, former Quaker meeting house, restored in fairly recent times and now used as a multi purpose hall.