Southampton Local Quaker
Meeting
Friends
Meeting
House
1a Ordnance Road
Southampton
Hampshire
SO15 2AZ
Days
and Times of meetings: every Sunday at
10.45 a.m.
Children’s Meeting: every Sunday, plus Junior Young Friends on
2nd and 4th Sunday in the month
Directions: On foot - 3/4 mile from
Railway Station
(Click on small
map for a larger MAP)
Contact: Ann Stammers, Warden, tel. 023
80223758 or email
here.
About Us: We are an active Meeting
(usually about 50 people attend on Sundays) with a wide age range and a
variety of interests.
In addition to the Children's Meeting and the
Junior Young Friends, the
Prime Group (ages 17 to 40ish) meets monthly for lunch followed by
discussion. There are also worship and study groups held in Friends'
homes and a Healing Group once a month before Meeting for Worship. The
Meeting House, built in 1884, is used during the week by a
number
of local organisations.
... More history
below.
Southampton Quakers are much involved in local peace action and in
interchurch and interfaith activities such as the
Southampton Council of Faiths.
QUAKERS IN SOUTHAMPTON
George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement, came to Southampton
in 1655. One of the earliest Southampton Quakers was George Embree. He
lived in the parish of All Saints and early Quaker Meetings were held
at his house. In defiance of the Conventicle Act, Quakers held their
Meetings openly. Between 1657 and 1666 some sixty Friends were
persecuted, a third of them women.
George Embree died in September 1678 and left a legacy to
Southampton Friends which still survives. He had bought a piece of land
known as the 'cabbidge plot' on the road leading to Winchester and
presented it to the Meeting in 1662 as a burial ground, since when it
has been in continual use, and is now the only private burial ground in
Southampton.
After the passing of the Toleration Act in 1689, Friends began to
think about building a Meeting House. Eventually they found a site in
Castle Lane and built a Meeting House with a yard for tethering horses.
During the eighteenth century, the number of Quakers in Southampton
declined and the Castle Lane Meeting House fell into disuse. By the
early nine¬teenth century the population of Southampton was
increasing rapidly as more people were moving into the town. Two
Friends, William Colson Westlake and Joseph Ball advanced money for a
new Meeting House in Castle Square which continued in use from 1822 to
1884.
By 1880 the town was extending rapidly northwards and the Meeting
House was described as 'situate in a degraded part of the town'. The
decision was taken to build a new Meeting House in Ordnance Road,
conveniently close to the burial ground in the Avenue. The architect
was instructed to design 'something between a chapel, a mission room
and a club building'. The Quakers in 1884 sought to provide a building
which would serve the needs of the Meeting well into the twentieth
century, which it has done.
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