Farfield Friends Meeting House

In 1666, Anthony Myers of Farfield Hall, Addingham,^[2] provided a plot of land to be used as a Quaker burial ground.^[3][4] Twenty-three years later, in 1689, the Act of Toleration was passed giving the right to Nonconformists to build places of worship. In that year Anthony Myers gave a further adjacent plot of land for building a meeting house; the construction of this was completed during the same year.^[1][5]

The small meeting house is typical of rural Quaker meeting houses of the period, poignant in its simplicity. It is constructed in stone rubble with ashlar dressings and has a stone slate roof. The building is in a single storey with three bays. There is one door, and the three windows have mullions; at the corners of the building are quoins. The interior consists of a single cell. At its east end is a dais with settles and turned balusters.^[1]

In the graveyard to the northeast of the meeting house are five joined chest tombs to the Myers family dated between 1687 and 1737. They are designated as a Grade II listed building.^[6] This style of tomb is unusual in Quaker burial grounds as it was considered to be ostentatious and was later discouraged by the movement.^[5]

The building was owned by the Historic Chapels Trust who have restored it and aim to preserve it in perpetuity, as part of the physical evidence of British religious life. It is now owned by the Friends of Friendless Churches, who took ownership of the site in December 2024.^[7] It can be visited during daylight hours. Three car parking spaces and picnic area are adjacent. A long-distance footpath, the Dales Way, passes through the grounds.^[5] In 2018 Historic England placed the meeting house in the top ten of the Faith and Belief category of its A History of England in 100 Places project.^[8][9]