Monument record 10053 - Friends Meeting House, Frodsham Street

<1> Ordnance Survey, 1872-1875, Metric Ten Foot Scale Town Plan of Chester (Maps and Plans). SCH6780.

A small Friend’s Meeting House with seats for 100 people was recorded to the east of Frodsham Street in the 19th century. The small plot also held a graveyard to the rear and a garden in front.

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1872-1875, Metric Ten Foot Scale Town Plan of Chester (Maps and Plans). SCH6780.

<3> Lewis C.P & Thacker A.T. (eds), 2005, Victoria County History - A History of the County of Chester: Volume Vii, The City of Chester - The City of Chester, Culture, Buildings, Institutions (Book). SCH6522.

Once the second oldest meeting place of nonconformist worship in Chester, the house was originally built in 1703 and continued until 1851 when it was re-modelled in the later 19th century and underwent repair in the 1960s however significant structural weaknesses led to its demolition in 1975.

<4> Architectural History Practice, 2015, Quaker Meeting House, Chester (Client Report). SCH7961.

Architectural report undertaken in 2015 to assess the Quaker Meeting House, Frodsham Street, Chester. A modest building of 1974-5 that provides good facilities for both Quakers and community groups but has low archaeological potential. The site, however, has high archaeological potential as there was a former meeting house and burial ground.

Meetings have been taking place on the site of the present meeting house since at least 1701. The site in Frodsham Street, formerly known as Cow Lane, once housed a farm building which was used by friends for meetings in 1701 or even earlier. The farm building was replaced by a purpose built meeting building in 1703. From the 1800s a number of alterations and repairs occurred but this building was demolished in 1964 when death watch beetle was found in the roof timbers. The site was sold for re-development and in 1975 the site was purchased by a commercial developer who built a shop at ground floor level with a dual purpose meeting house and wardens flat at first floor level. Human remains discovered during the 1970s development were exhumed and moved to the city cemetery. During the 1990s the flat was dispensed with and the space incorporated as extra rooms in the meeting house.