Quakers plan inspiring refurbishment for Friends House

Trustees for Quakers in Britain have recently agreed to invest in an inspiring refurbishment of the large meeting space at Friends House, London, traditionally used for Britain Yearly Meeting – Quakers’ annual decision-making forum. 

Friends House in central London - with a quiet courtyard at its heart - is the headquarters of Quakers in Britain. A twentieth century listed building, it includes offices for Britain Yearly Meeting’s centrally employed staff, an historic library and the Quaker Centre with its bookshop, cafe and restaurant. The building also operates as a successful conference and events centre, with rooms let to generate income for Quaker work.

Clerk to the Trustees Jonathan Fox said: “We want Friends House to exemplify our Quaker testimonies to simplicity, integrity, peace and equality, and to demonstrate our commitment to sustainability. Friends House is a key piece of our heritage, an asset through which our continuing witness in the world is realised. We have expressed our responsibility for its stewardship and our desire to enable the building to work for us in a manner appropriate to the 21st century.”

The architects, John McAslan + Partners, will work closely with local planning officials, especially in developing the skylight concept, in which Quaker artist James Turrell has expressed an interest.

The gradual refurbishment of Friends House is already underway. Green credentials of the new work will be maximised by adding solar panels, energy-efficient lighting, wall insulation, and heat-exchange systems. The improved layout will give people with disabilities the same opportunities as other visitors.

To fund the work Trustees have set aside £4.25m out of the £6.6m raised by selling a long lease on Quaker-owned Courtauld House. Putting money into the building instead of the financial markets will reduce investment income. However, Trustees are confident that existing reserves will ensure Quaker work will not be significantly affected, and that sustained bookings over the decades ahead will compensate for this in the long term.

The work will start in June 2013 after Yearly Meeting (that is the annual assembly with supreme decision-making authority for Quakers in Britain) and take one year to complete. The first Yearly Meeting in the refurbished space will be in 2015, with planning already under way for the 2014 event to be a residential meeting outside of London.

Ends

Notes to editor:

• Approximately 23,000 people attend Quaker Meetings for Worship in Great Britain, and there are more than 475 Meetings.
• Quakers are known formally as the Religious Society of Friends.
• Significant visitors to Friends House over the years have included Mahatma Gandhi. In 1931, at a time of considerable turmoil in India, Gandhi was welcomed to Friends House, for a series of meetings for silent prayer, along with more than one hundred British and Indian, Hindus, Muslims and Christians.
• Friends House, a listed building, was designed by architect Hubert Lidbetter and won the 1927 RIBA bronze medal for best building erected in London.
• Trustees' minute here: BYM Trustees' Large Meeting House project 

Media Information
Anne van Staveren
0207 663 1048
07958 009703
annev@quaker.org.uk
www.quaker.org.uk

Archtitects impressions

An architect’s impression of a proposed design for the Large Meeting House (Image: John McAslan + Partners)

Animation: An architect’s impression of Friends House (Image: Phil Cottrell AVR and John McAslan + Partners)