Tag Archives: quakers

Come to good in the countryside of Cornwall

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QUAKERS, MEMBERS OF The Society of Friends are Christians who believe that worship should rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit without the intercession of ordained ministers and without practising outward rituals. The Quakers worship one to one with God without any external ‘frills’. The Quaker movement was founded by George Fox (1624-1691) in about 1652.

Fox travelled around England, Europe, and North America, encouraging people to adopt his method of worship. In 1656, he came to Cornwall. While there, he was arrested for blasphemy several times. Nevertheless, many Cornish people were keen to hear what he had to say, and became his followers. Soon after his visit, groups of Quakers began to form in Cornwall. One of them began meeting in a farmhouse near to the hamlet called Come-to-Good in about 1653. Then, they began renting another building nearby. When this began to disintegrate in 1707, they raised money to build a new Meeting House: a simple thatched cottage, which was completed in about 1710. This humble edifice is still in use for worship meetings today. It stands in Come-to-Good.

The historicengland.org.uk website noted:

“The Meeting House was built in 1710 using funds’ raised from Quaker subscribers in 1707 and 1710. … Research by Mr Withers of Penelewey Barton shows that the farm, including the land on which the meeting house stands, was owned by James Mayo, a Quaker, and was later leased to Vyvian, whose name with the date 1716 is scratched on one of the window panes at the farmhouse. In spite of the C20 porch on the west end, this little meeting house has been remarkably unaltered since the C19 and still retains much of its original character and fabric.”

We visited the Meeting House in early July 2024. Sadly, we could not enter it because it was locked up. So, we were unable to see its simple interior, which has remained almost unchanged since the place was first used. From the road, the Meeting House looks much as it would have when it was built. A small extension with an entrance hall, kitchen, and toilets was added to the rear of the old building in 1967.

There is a small Quaker burial ground near the Meeting House, but we did not notice it because the burial mounds were levelled in the 1940s. One of the people buried there is a Quaker preacher, Catherine Payton Phillips (1727-1794), who, like George Fox, travelled in the British Isles, Continental Europe, and the North American colonies.  In 1772, she married William Phillips, and lived with him in his home in Redruth (not far from Come-to-Good).

As for the hamlet’s name, Come-to-Good, it is currently believed that the place was only called that after the formation of the local Quaker’s meeting group. Although it is only a small building, which hardly rivals some of Cornwall’s other attractions, it is a pleasant, peaceful place to visit in the heart of the Cornish countryside.

Buried beside and beneath a busy highway in Hammersmith

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FURNIVALL GARDENS IS a pleasant grassy open space that lies between the busy Great West Road (part of the A4) and Hammersmith’s riverside at Lower Mall. The park was created as part of the Festival of Britain (1951). Prior to WW2, the area upon which the garden now stands was mostly occupied by industrial premises and slums. Part of this area was occupied by the Quakers (of Hammersmith) Friends’ Meeting House and its adjoining Friends’ burial ground. A little bit of the land owned by the Quakers is now covered by the carriageways of the A4. The Quakers gave up their land to Hammersmith Borough Council when they were planning Furnivall Gardens.

There have been Quakers living and worshipping in Hammersmith since 1658 (see: https://hammersmithquakers.org.uk/history/). In 1677, they built their first Meeting House at number 28 Lower Mall near Hammersmith Creek (now covered up), which used to run along the western edge of what is now Furnivall Gardens. This tributary of the Thames ran through a very poor area of Hammersmith. In 1765, the meeting House was rebuilt and remained in use until a few years after the Creek was covered over in 1936. On the 24th of July 1944, this venerable Meeting House was destroyed by a flying bomb.

I have walked through Furnivall Gardens many times, but it was only today (the 18th of February 2024) that we took time to look at a noticeboard with its history. My wife noticed that the former Quaker Meeting House and burial ground are mentioned on this informative board. It indicated an area of the Gardens, where a memorial stone can be found. The simple monument in an area walled off from the rest of the park is surmounted by a circular metal plate on which the following words are inscribed:

“This garden is on the site of the Friends’ Meeting House and burial ground 1765-1944”.

It is an unassuming little memorial, which you might not notice if you did not know it existed. It has taken me several decades to become aware of it. I have driven along the stretch of the A4 that runs alongside Furnivall Gardens many times. And until today, I had no idea that my car’s tyres were racing over land where once Quakers were buried.

Mahatma Gandhi in Hampstead

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WHEN I USED TO visit Hampstead with my parents in the early 1960s, we always walked past a place that intrigued me when I was a youngster. It was the still standing Hampstead Quaker Meeting House, which has a lovely front garden. The latter is overlooked by its neighbour, the late 18th centuryMansfield Cottage, which in the 1960s housed a tearoom or restaurant. The Meeting House with art nouveau (Arts and Crafts) features was built in about 1907 to the designs of Fred Rowntree (1860-1927). According to James D Hunt in his detailed book “Gandhi in London”, Mohandas K Gandhi (1869-1948), the future Mahatma, spoke in this meeting house on the 13th of October 1909:

“… perhaps travelling there by the recently opened underground line … The Society of Friends (Quakers) were not at this time much interested in Indian affairs … The 1909 meeting was sponsored by the Hampstead Peace and Arbitration Society”

The speech, as recorded by Robert Payne in his “The Life and Death of Mahatma Gandhi”, was entitled “East and West” and outlined the evils of the British occupation of India and the sufferings of Indians in South Africa. I knew nothing of this or about the house when we used to stroll down Heath Street.

Coffee al fresco

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THE COVID19 PANDEMIC has, for the time being, made drinking inside cafés a thing of the past. If you wish to enjoy a beverage, be it a cappuccino, cortado, americano, a hot chocolate, or even a humble cup of tea, you can buy it at a counter and then enjoy it outdoors, come rain, snow, or shine. In the absence of restaurants and pubs, with the exception of take-away foods, this has become one of the few little treats, apart from the joys of nature, available to those who wish to enjoy a bit of life out in the open air.

Not long ago, whilst exercising in London’s Hampstead district, we came across a particularly lovely place to obtain hot drinks and a selection of snacks, both sweet and savoury. They are being served under a canopy illuminated by strings of ‘fairy lights’ on a terrace overlooking the sloping garden of Burgh House.

Built in 1704 during the reign of Queen Anne, Burgh House was, according to the historian of Hampstead, Thomas Barratt, first owned by a Quaker couple, Henry and Hannah Sewell. Barratt remarked:

“…the house gives the idea of Quaker severity of style combined with a good quality of work.”

The house acquired its present name in 1822, when it was the residence of the Reverend Allatson Burgh (1769-1856), who was for a time vicar of St Lawrence Jewry (http://www.burghhouse.org.uk/about-us/history-of-the-residents-of-burgh-house#revburgh). He was also the author of a book about church music. Prior to the cleric, the house was occupied, between 1776 and 1820, by the upholsterer Israel Lewis (1748-1820) and his wife Sarah, both known for their good deeds. Lewis was a supporter of the non-Conformist Rosslyn Hill Chapel in Hampstead. The family also provided assistance to the poet John Keats (1795-1821) and his brothers. On the 16th of October 1818, the poet wrote to his brother, who was living in the USA, George Keats (1797-1841):

“Mr Lewis has been very kind to Tom all the summer. There has scarce a day passed but he has visited him, and not one day without bringing him or sending some fruit of the nicest kind.”  (“The Letters of John Keats: Volume 1, 1814-1818”)

Burgh House is close to the former chalybeate wells of Hampstead, which were famed for their alleged curative properties. Before the Lewis’s lived there, it was the home of the chief physician of the Wells and a promoter of the benefits of its water, Dr William Gibbons (1649-1728) and his wife Elizabeth. They lived in the house between 1720 and 1743, Elizabeth continuing to live there as a widow.

After Burgh’s death in 1856, the house named after him became the officers’ mess and headquarters of the Royal East Middlesex Militia between 1858 and 1881. The house was then privately owned by several other people, the last of whom were Captain George Louis St Clair Bambridge (1892-1943) and his wife Elsie (1896-1976). Mrs Bambridge’s father was the writer Rudyard Kipling, who was born in Bombay (India). The Bambridges lived at Burgh House between 1933 and 1937. During that time, the ageing Rudyard was a regular visitor.

After the Bambridges left Burgh House for Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire, the venerable building faced dilapidation until it was taken over by Hampstead Borough Council in 1946. It was then used for social functions such as wedding receptions.

After a long campaign and much fund-raising, the house was opened to the public as a museum in 2006. In addition to displaying items of historical interest, concerts, talks, and other cultural events are also held there. The concerts are held in a music room that the Reverend Burgh added on to the building when he occupied it.  All these life-enhancing activities have come to a halt during the covid19 pandemic. The pleasant and attractive outdoor café is helping to keep the community spirit alive until rates of infection decrease sufficiently to allow at least some return of the cultural activities that we used to enjoy.

The Burgh House café is open from Wednesday to Sunday. Should you visit Hampstead when the café at this place is closed, there are another three Hampstead places, from which we enjoy collecting hot beverages:

Ginger and White in Perrins Court

The Coffee Cup in Hampstead High Street

Matchbox Café in South End Green

There are also a couple of telephone kiosks that have been converted to tiny cafés both in Hampstead High Street and Pond Square, but we have never sampled their wares.