Quaker Meeting House, Bradford on Avon

The Society of Friends was probably the first group of Dissenters to have a permenant meeting place in Bradford parish, this being at Cumberwell, on or near the site of the present Pottick's House. There was also a Friend's burial ground here. From 1698 this gathering was known as the Bradford Meeting and a meeting house was built in a court off Market Street in Bradford; this has a date stone of 1718. From 1670 to 1730 Quakers were numerous and influential in Bradford but membership then began to decline. The meeting house closed in 1798 and the few who remained transferred to Melksham. The Meeting re-opened in 1971 after a private house in Whitehead's Lane, pictured here, had been converted for use in the late 1960s. The Lane was actually named after Manessah Whitehead, a Quaker who lived there in the 17th century.