Llanago, Old Radnor, Presteigne, Powys LD8 2RP T. 01544 350520 M. 07444 311421 info@thegriffi thsheritageconsultancy.co.uk www.thegriffi thsheritageconsultancy.co.uk Coanwood Friends’ Meeting House, Nr Haltwhistle, Northumberland NE49 0PU Conservation Statement for Historic Chapels Trust July 2016 Conservation Statement for Coanwood Friends’ Meeting House 1. Introduction Historic Chapels Trust (HCT) is in the process of reviewing its Asset Management Plan. It gratefully acknowledges funding from Historic England to commission a series of conservation statements for all of its historic churches, chapels and meeting houses, of which this report is one. A conservation statement is a summary of a heritage asset, including what it is, why it is important, what the current situation is and what needs to be done to look a er it in the future. It is o en done on the basis of existing knowledge, identifying any gaps or areas for future research. is conservation statement is based on the advice contained within: English Heritage’s (Historic England) (2008) Conservation Principles Policies and Guidance for the Sustaina- ble Management of the Historic Environment (London); e Prince’s Regeneration Trust’s (2009) How to: Write Conservation Reports; and the second Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) guidance Conservation Management Plans (2004) (which includes advice on Conserva- tion Statements). It has been commissioned by Historic Chapels Trust and bene ts from the valuable input of local volunteers. It has been produced by e Griffi ths Heritage Consultancy Ltd. All orientations are by the compass. 1.1 Coanwood Friends’ Meeting House Coanwood Friends’ Meeting House, Nr Haltwhistle, Northumberland NE49 0PU Coanwood Friends’ Meeting House (FMH) is located in a remote rural area of Northum- berland, about 2.5 miles east of Coanwood village, about 3 miles south of the main A69, Haltwhistle and Hadrian’s Wall and approximately midway between Carlisle and Hex- ham. It is within the North Pennines AONB which is also a UNESCO Global Geopark. Fig. 2 Large scale location plans with inset showing Coanwood FMH next to Fig. 1 Location map, showing Coanwood Burn House in relation to the north of Britain. farm Page 2 Conservation Statement for Coanwood Friends’ Meeting House e Meeting House is Grade II* Listed (list entry No. 1042914) and was rst listed in 1967. HCT is the freehold owner of the meeting house and burial ground and is a secu- lar charity dealing with places of worship of non-Anglican churches that are no longer in use by their religious denominations. e meeting house is no long used as a regular place of worship, although a yearly meeting is still held there by the Hexham Quakers. e site therefore falls under listed building and planning legislation. ere is an active keyholder and a small, informally constituted committee that keeps a local eye on the meeting house, including members of the Wigham family. Supervision of basic mainte- nance, the organisation of events, grass cutting and so on are undertaken on an informal basis by local people. ere are many local public rights of way and several of the trail lea ets produced by the North Pennines AONB take visitors close to or right past the meeting house. 2. Understanding Some work has already been conducted regarding the history and development of Coan- wood Friends’ Meeting House. It is not the place here to repeat this but to summarise and use this information to inform the statement of signi cance. Useful resources for research are cited at the end of this document. A brief history and guide for the site has been produced and is available from HCT. Coanwood is one of the oldest of the few meeting houses le in Northumberland and the only one not to have been ‘upgraded’ in the nineteenth century. It is of importance because it has survived virtually unaltered. It is a single storey rectangular building, built in the local vernacular with local squared coursed stone and rusticated quoins and dressings. e roof is mostly slate and appears to have been replaced, although some of the roof timbers are of oak and may be reused from the original. A small stone lean-to addition at the east elevation contains an earth closet toilet. Also at the east end is a small stone chimney. e rectangular burial ground lies to the south of the meeting house and contains several grave markers, although it is thought that the burial ground is full, mostly with unmarked graves. e burial ground is surrounded on the west, south and east by dry stone walls, with a pedestrian gate in the south side. e north and west of the meeting house are open to the surrounding elds. Burn House farm lies to the south west and a yard area to the south of the burial ground provides an informal parking area. 2.1 Development Coanwood was perhaps originally ‘Collingwood’, meaning hazel trees or wood (Macdon- ald, 2010) or perhaps ‘Collan’s wood’ (Ellwood, 2015); Collan I and II being medieval provosts (thane, abbot or prior) of Hexham. Coanwood Friends’ Meeting House was established in 1760 by Cuthbert Wigham (1704- 1780) - a man of local importance, with a large estate and ‘manorial privileges over two thousand eight hundred acres’ (cited in Dzierlenga, undated). e Wighams were rst noted in the area in 1539 (Hexham Quakers, undated) but it is their later history which sees them inextricably linked with Coanwood FMH, from its establishment up to the present day. In 1722 Cuthbert Wigham married Elizabeth Dixon in the parish church at Hexham, since at this period he was still a member of the established church. By all accounts Cuthbert enjoyed a debauched and immoral lifestyle, but by 1735 Cuthbert had become Page 3 Conservation Statement for Coanwood Friends’ Meeting House a Quaker due to an incredible experience, recounted in Richardson’s 1848 account of the rise of the Coanwood Friends: “When about thirty years of age, he was awakened to a sense of his sinful and dangerous condition, by an awful visitation. As he was returning one moonlight night from a card party, where he had been spending his precious time in dissipation, he was suddenly struck with blindness, and had to be led home. ough in the course of a few hours a er reaching his habitation, his vision was restored, yet the circumstance produced a powerful eff ect upon his mind. us becoming convinced of the blessed truth. ., he was joined in religious fellowship with the Society of Friends. is event took place about the year 1734.” By 1735 Cuthbert had established a Friends’ meeting at his house and from 1753 he became a travelling preacher. In 1760 he bequeathed some land for the construction of a meeting house and burial ground. e FMH at Coanwood, pretty much as we see it today, dates from this period. Cuthbert died in 1780 and is buried at the meeting house. Mining in this area was on a relatively small scale until the Industrial Revolution - it boomed from the late 1700s to the late 1800s. is period also saw a huge increase in the population as people came to the area for coal and lead mining. Life was hard for these miners and their families and they readily took to other forms of religion including Quakerism, a er the established church failed to provide for their needs. In the late 19th and early 20th the lead industry went into decline because of cheap imports and falling prices. Many families moved from the area at this time, o en emigrating to America or Australia. Fig. 3 Ordnance Survey map from 1885 showing the meeting house and the number of closed quarries and coal sha s In 1850 the Coanwood Reading Library opened at the Friends Meeting House, open- ing on Saturday evenings. is was run initially by Robert Sharp the local schoolteacher from Tanpits (see map above) and it ran until 1909. However, Coanwood FMH was used by the Friends until 1960, when they moved to Hargill House. e meeting house then became disused until it was taken into care by the Historic Chapels Trust in 1996. Exten- sive repair works were undertaken in 2002. Page 4 Conservation Statement for Coanwood Friends’ Meeting House 2.2 Architectural Features N Fig. 4 Floorplan of Coanwood FMH showing main features (not to scale)© P.F. Ryder (extracted from Barnes 2015) 2.2.1 External Walls As with most Quaker buildings the Coanwood meeting house is delightfully simplistic in its design. e four walls of the meeting house and the walls of the toilet lean-to are constructed of local stone, squared and coursed with rusticated slightly raised quoins and a plain chamfered plinth to the front south wall at the east end, which may indicate the original ground level. e south wall only also has a plain cornice and contains the doorway, also with quoins and a plain ledged planked door with some early door furni- ture. ere are three xed light windows with plain stone surrounds to the south, of tim- ber with Georgian style glazing of 12 panes. e west gable wall is plain but with kneeler stones without coping. is and the north wall receive the prevailing weather. e rear north wall also has a rough plinth, again probably indicating the original ground level and a single box sash window of 16 panes and no horns. e east wall is similar to the west gable except that it has the lean-to toilet structure and also shows evidence high up of a former lean-to on a much larger scale, which had a stone slate roof.