Coventry Quakers

Friends Meeting House
Hill Street, Coventry
CV1 4AN
CoClerks:Gillian Waddilove and Pete Duckworth

Email: clerk@coventryquakers.org.uk
For all room use contact the Lettings Secretary: lettings@coventryquakers.org.uk

Meeting for Worship every Sunday 10.30 am, Midweek meeting Wednesdays at 12.30
Children’s Meeting 2nd, 4th and 5th Sundays
'Bring and Share' lunch second Sundays.

The Meeting House
How to find us
Activities
Links
A brief History of Quakerism in the Coventry area

"Quakers believe that God speaks to everyone, and we worship God as equals. We sit together and try to find a peace within ourselves, which then seems to gather us into silence. We might be prompted to speak or simply listen to words which help us in our daily lives." A young offender wrote this from Onley YOI - a local Prison. It is a good summary of Quaker worship, and what happens during one of our ‘Meetings for Worship’. Visiting this prison to take part in Meeting for Worship is one of the concerns supported by Coventry Quakers.


The Meeting House

Corner of the GardenOur Meeting House offers a base for our outreach and fellowship and is in walking distance of the city centre.
We offer our Meeting House for letting to organisations "with which we are in sympathy'?.
The main Meeting room is upstairs 24 ft x 36 ft and is suitable for about 100 people in theatre style.
The committee room seats about 8 and the library downstairs about 30 people.
There is a kitchen equipped for provision of tea and light refreshments.
All rooms are heated by direct gas heating.
All the ground floor is fully accessible by wheelchairs with disabled toilet and ramps front and back. There is a stair lift to the first floor. See DDA assessment
The rear faces a pleasant garden with a large fenced lawn.
We have limited car parking for evening and weekend lets. We have five cycle securing holdfasts around the rear.
(Letting Secretary Tel. 024 7641 0499)


How to find us:

By car - Enter the city centre at Junction 9 on the inner ring road (by Wickes and the fire station). Right at the end (second) traffic lights, along Corporation Street (by the Belgrade Theatre) and right up Hill Street (St John’s Church on corner). The Meeting House is on the left. Private car park (12 places) but vast public car parks adjacent. The best public car park is Belgrade Plaza and is accessible from the Junction 9 roundabout. (Unless you think you might be able to get into the Meeting House car park use this as you have to go back out the way you came in to the entrance off Junction 9!). The Meeting house is just across from the rear entrance.

On public transport / on foot - From Pool Meadow bus station; walk along Fairfax Street, Hales St. and Corporation St and the Quaker Meeting House is behind the Belgrade Theatre.
From the Coventry Railway station; Leave by main entrance and bear left under the 'building archway' (main road entrance in to station). Take pedestrian underpass and across the green along Freeman's Walk (roughly in a straight line). At the end, bear right and then immediately take Greyfriars Road ('dual carriage way') on left and follow round, past IKEA on your left, until you reach St John's church (red sandstone) on corner of Hill Street. The Meeting House is up Hill Street on the left just after the cobbled area marking the site of Hill Street Gate. About 12 to 15 minutes walk.

By Taxi - Hill Street is off Corporation street (St John's Church - red sandstone on the corner) and we are just up from Bond's Hospital - sheltered housing for old people. Note: We are not the Unitarian's Great Meeting House on Holyhead Road.

Location Map (at StreetMap.co.uk)


A brief History of Quakerism in the Coventry area.

There has been a Quaker meeting in Coventry from the early days of the Society of Friends (shortly after 1652).
George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), was born in 1624 in Fenny Drayton (then called Drayton in the Clay), a few miles to the north. Coventry was his nearest major city.


The site in Hill Street was purchased in 1668 as a burial ground just outside the city boundary. At that time the Meeting House was in Vicar Lane (now under the precinct),
and St John’s Church (A) on the corner near where Hill Street gate was. Later, in 1898, the Vicar Lane building was sold and a Meeting House (B) was built in Lower Holyhead Road at the back of the burial ground. That site was sold in 1939.

The present Meeting House (C) dates from 1953.

 

 

 

View from the top of the old Cathedral spire looking over the precinct
Vicar Lane (now completely disappeared) was just off the left of the picture
(A) St John’s Church (corner of Hill Street)
(B) The old meeting house (behind the present one)
(C) Roof of present meeting house.


Activities and Projects

Coventry Quaker Meeting and its Members support many local organisations, which include:

Link Community Development www.lcd.org.uk - a wonderful story of results by a local school and a project we support.

Talking Friends - Putting 'The Friend' and other Quaker publications onto tape for the benefit of our visually handicapped www.talkingfriends.org.uk - several of us are involved as readers or in other roles.

St Andrews Free Church Home - www.standrewshouse.org.uk - taking care of our elderly people;

Emmaus Community in Coventry and Warwickshire; www.emmaus.org.uk - helping people to help themselves;

Norton House and the Cyrenians - the local open house for those who need it, we have established a lending library for their users;

Coventry Refugee Centre www.covrefugee.org we have established a lending library for their users;

Coventry Peace House Our input and and its work for refugees and asylum seekers;

Coventry and Warwickshire Mission in the World of Work now called WorkCare Coventry and Warwickshire www.workcare.org

The Quaker Tapestry. (Coventry Quakers did most of the work on panel C5 ‘Meeting Houses Overseas’) www.quaker-tapestry.co.uk

Coventry Churches Mailing - a distribution of leaflets and information to all subscribing local churches - more information;

University of Coventry Centre for the Study of Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Peace Studies

The Quaker Committee for European Affairs - British Committee www.qceabc.org.uk

The 'Preparing for Peace' Project. If we are serious that war is not the answer, we need to study the alternatives www.preparingforpeace.org

Sangam School www.sangamschool.org.uk - a school in a poor area of India that offers education to boys and girls and of all faiths, without it many would not get any education, many of Coventry Meeting are members of 'The Friends of Sangam Foundation'

University of Warwick - Warwick Religions and Education Research Unit (WRERU) www.warwick.ac.uk/wie/wreru

Humanitarian demining; www.trellick.net/landmines

Churches Together in  Coventry and Warwickshire www.ctcw.org.uk which has a page concerning  the Chapel of Unity. We are regular users of it and contributors to the early Wednesday morning service.

Coventry Cathedral www.coventrycathedral.org.uk which has the Chapel of Unity in. We have also been very supportive of the Cathedral’s international work;

Priory Rooms a meeting and conference centre in central Birmingham www.theprioryrooms.co.uk Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre. www.woodbrooke.org.uk and the Quaker centre's network www.quakercentres.org.uk

Promoting '1624country' the area around Coventry where George fox was born www.1624country.org.uk

And individuals working and using their free time in many other roles!

Other links:

Britain Yearly Meeting (Main Quaker web site) www.quaker.org.uk

Warwickshire Monthly Meeting - Quaker meetings in Birmingham, Warwickshire and Coventry (our area) www.warwickshire quakers.org.uk

‘The Friend’ The weekly magazine for Quakers in Britain Yearly Meeting www.thefriend.org

Other useful links:

J & J Cash Ltd (Joseph, one of the Company’s founders and his wife Sarah lie in our burial ground) www.jjcash.co.uk/history.htm

Coventry the place to visit Coventry Tourism information

'Made in Coventry' Celebrating Coventry's spectacular motoring history www.micma.co.uk


Number of times people have visited this web site since 27th March 2001:

Site originally created by Stephen Petter of Hamlet Consulting Ltd, 27/3/01,                        

For Webwmaster via the clerk email above
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