page_title: Godalming Friends Meeting House
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Godalming Friends Meeting House / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Friends Meeting House, Mill Lane, Godalming, Borough of Waverley, Surrey, England.
context_page_description: Godalming Friends Meeting House is a Friends meeting house in the ancient town of Godalming in the English county of Surrey. One of many Nonconformist places of worship in the town, it dates from 1748 but houses a congregation whose roots go back nearly a century earlier. Decline set in during the 19th century and the meeting house passed out of Quaker use for nearly 60 years, but in 1926 the cause was reactivated and since then an unbroken history of Quaker worship has been maintained. Many improvements were carried out in the 20th century to the simple brick-built meeting house, which is Grade II-listed in view of its architectural and historical importance.
context_section_description: The Friends meeting house is "a simple 18th-century brick building", similar in appearance to the series of old meeting houses elsewhere in Surrey such as Capel (1724), Guildford (1805), Esher (1793) and Dorking (1846, replacing a building of 1709).  The walls are mostly of red brick laid in the Flemish bond pattern, with some vitrified brickwork.  Some of the lower courses of brickwork are galleted.  There is also some Bargate stone, and the roof is laid with tiles and is of a hipped design.  The centrally placed eight-panelled door is recessed into a doorway below a hood mould supported on corbels.  It is flanked by one straight-headed casement window on each side.  The rear wall, on which the brickwork is galleted, also has a central doorway flanked by cross-framed windows, and a second doorway gives access to a staircase which leads to a loft.  This staircase immediately adjoins the neighbouring cottage.  On the rear wall, several bricks have been inscribed with the year 1748 and members' initials.  Likewise, in the annexe, the year 1772 and sets of initials are visible on several bricks.
  The narrow wing built c. 1772 was extended and converted into a women's meeting room in 1808.  It was originally detached, but after the meeting room reopened a connecting lobby was built in the mid-20th century to link the room (which had been converted into a classroom, but which later became a kitchen) to the main meeting house.  This annexe is smaller and narrower than the meeting house and stands in front of it to the right.  The interior has three bays corresponding to these openings.  The ceiling is plastered and has a moulded cornice.  The room was originally partitioned, but only a wooden beam across the roof (supported on a centrally placed timber post) shows where this was.
caption: View of the meeting house from outside the grounds.
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