Sticklepath, Devon

The Quaker graveyard in Sticklepath

I came to Sticklepath by accident, stopping there because the village shop advertised coffee, which I needed. I didn’t have time to visit the place’s most obvious attraction, the Finch Foundry (a working forge, not a foundry) other than pausing to admire its water wheel from beneath the head race, dodging drips as I watched the ironwork turn. But I did stop for a moment in the Quaker graveyard behind the forge, for a short contemplative break, and to wait for the clouds to part and the sun to shine on the tiny structure in my photograph.

It’s a shelter in one corner of the graveyard. I’ve no idea how old it is – the very solid looking walls seem to have some age, but the lovely thatched roof is recent, though no doubt a replacement of earlier thatch, perhaps of many generations of earlier thatch. It’s tiny, just big enough to contain a bench seat with room for two, looking out over the graves. It seemed to me to be an excellent example of the value of taking pains over a modest structure: how much pleasure it must have given, over the years, to people who need a rest, and to those who just like to see something well made.

I don’t usually feel morbid in graveyards and, in spite of the proximity of the tables where visitors to the forge could take refreshments, the place was quiet and peaceful. Could I hear the occasional drip and splash from the water wheel? Maybe. I’m not sure. I don’t recall noticing it, but if I had it would have seemed a sound fit as much for calm as anything. The mood was enhanced by a poem by the hymn-writer and humanitarian James Montgomery (1771–1854) about just such a place.* The words are hand painted on a noticeboard attached to the back of the shelter. The poem seemed apposite: it ends:

Green myrtles fenced it, and beyond their bound
Ran the clear rill with ever-murmuring sound.
Twas not a scene for grief to nourish care,
It breathed of hope & moved the heart to prayer.

They’re lines very much of their time, and somewhat conventional, but well made and right – like the little shelter that contains them, and no doubt the products of the forge nearby. Fortified by such thoughts – or maybe by the coffee – I went on my way.

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*James Montgomery was just a name to me, someone whose work was praised by Lord Byron. He seems to have been a good egg, supporting abolitionism, upholding the right of protestors to make their case, and writing a poem against the practice of employing small boys to climb up chimneys to sweep them. He wrote the carol ‘Angels from the Realms of Glory’ and adapted Psalm 23 to create the hymn ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’.

Jordans, Buckinghamshire

The archetypal meeting house

From their origins in the 1640s until the late 1680s, the Quakers were persecuted in England. Many Quakers were imprisoned (usually on charges either of blasphemy or of causing a disturbance). Their meetings, like those of other dissenters, were outlawed. But continue to meet they did. Things changed in 1687, when King James II issued a Declaration of Indulgence, a measure that was followed by the Toleration Act, passed in 1689 under James's successors, the joint monarchs William and Mary. One group of Quakers, who had met at a house known as Old Jordans not far from Beaconsfield, moved quickly once the Declaration had been issued, building a meeting house by their burial ground. They called the building New Jordans, and Quakers still meet there today. This brick, hipped-roofed building of the late-1680s is for many the archetypal Quaker meeting house.

Architecturally, the meeting house looks modest – the Quakers eschewed the grandiose architecture and ornament of Anglican or Catholic places of worship just as they eschewed the churches' hierarchies and rituals. But the building is full of wonderful touches. The brickwork has a dappled effect because dark, vitreous bricks are used between the red ones – but the effect is not too dark because only the headers (the short ends) of the dark bricks show, whereas we see the stretchers (the long sides) of the red ones. The curving eaves cornice in white and the shuttered windows are also details that make the building stand out. Inside, it's no less impressive. The main room was panelled in the 18th century, and this woodwork and the plain benches set the tone of the interior. Miraculously, all this survived when the building suffered a major fire in 2005.

Jordans Meeting House, interior

But, as usual, this place is about much more than the architecture, It is steeped in history. George Fox worshipped at Old Jordans: he died in early 1691 when the meeting house was still new. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, is buried in the graveyard at Jordans, one of a number of early Quakers who are remembered with small stones right in front of the Meeting House. Thomas Ellwood (friend of Milton and inspirer of Paradise Regained), John Bellers (writer on education and early advocate of a national system of hospitals), and Isaac Pennington (writer and great defender of the Quaker movement) were other notable early Friends associated with Jordans. Their work, ideas, and beliefs have had an influence that has spread beyond this small place far across the world.

Jordans Meeting House, brickwork detail