Coventry Quakers

Friends Meeting House
Hill Street, Coventry
CV1 4AN
Clerk: Stella Roberts

Email: clerk@coventryquakers.org.uk

Meeting for Worship every Sunday 10.30 am
Children’s Meeting 2nd and 4th
'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 downstairs is fully accessible by wheelchairs with disabled toilet and ramps front and back. See DDA assessment
The rear faces a pleasant garden with a large fenced lawn.
We have limited car parking for evening and weekend lets.
(Letting Secretary Tel. 024 7659 1090)



How to find us:

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.

From Pool Meadow bus station; walk along Hales St. and Corporation St and the Quaker Meeting House is behind the Belgrade Theatre.

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/ and see report in www.tes.co.uk/2259533 - a wonderful story of results by a local school and a project we support.

Local ecumenical work through ‘C6’ (Coventry City Centre Council of Covenanting Churches);

St Andrews Free Church Home - 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;

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

Coventry and Warwickshire Mission in the world of Work www.cwmww.org.uk

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

Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre. www.woodbrooke.org.uk

University of Coventry Centre for the Study of Forgiveness and Reconciliation

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 contibutors 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;

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 www.coventry.org/

Museum of British Road Transport. www.mbrt.co.uk/


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

Site created by Stephen Petter of Hamlet Consulting Ltd, 27/3/01, Revised 2001-04-02                        
Filed as C:\data\webwork\spetter\covpm, accessed as www.coventryquakers.org.uk
which is held by UK2 where it has FWD to trythis.thenetzone.co.uk on Portland Comms.

12/6/2002 To check accessibility. and 17/03/04 Last mod 8/10/05

For Webwmaster via the clerk email above
Members