Hampstead Meeting House
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Hampstead Meeting House is a Friends meeting house (a Quaker place of worship) at 120 Heath Street in Hampstead, London N3.[1] It was designed by Fred Rowntree in the Arts and Crafts style.[2] The friends had previously met in Willoughby Road from 1903.[3] The Hungarian emigrant sculptor Peter Laszlo Peri was an elder of the Hampstead meeting; having joined in 1945.[4]
Mahatma Gandhi spoke at the meeting house in 1909.[5] The prominent Australian Quaker David Hodgkin married Bridget Kelsey in the meeting house in 1940.[6] The noted boat designer Iain Oughcubson became a member of the meeting in the late 1960s.[7] The New Zealand social worker and poet Ursula Bethell called the building a "beautiful little bare meeting house" in a 1937 letter to Rodney Kennedy.[8] The peace activist Stephen Hobhouse attended the Hampstead meeting after graduation in the 1900s.[9] The Chinese feminist and author Zeng Baosun attended the meeting during the 1910s.[10] The Orthodox priest and writer Lev Gillet also attended in the 1940s despite his Orthodox faith.[11]
A Quaker funeral at the Hampstead Meeting House is depicted in Zoe Heller's 2001 novel Everything You Know.[12]
The meeting house is listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England.[2]
The meeting for worship is held on Sundays at 11 am; with an additional meeting on the first Sunday of every month at 9:30 am.[13]