Friends Meeting House, Come-to-Good

The Friends Meeting House, Come-to-Good, is a meeting house of the Society of Friends (Quakers), on the southern border of the parish of Kea, near Truro in Cornwall. It was also known as Kea Meeting House and Feock Meeting House. It is a simple thatched structure built of cobstone and whitewashed outside and in. It was completed in 1710 and is still in use today.

Come-to-Good Meeting House
Come-to-Good Meeting House in 1993

History

George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers, came to Cornwall in 1656. He was arrested several times for blasphemy because his ideas were at odds with mainstream Christianity at the time. However people wanted to hear what he had to say and a group met regularly from 1680. They wanted a simple place in which to meet, and built a cob-and-thatch meeting house.[1]

The meeting house

The meeting house is a Grade I Listed building. From 30 May 1967 until 14 April 1999, it was Grade II*. The building is in cob, on a stone rubble base and was completed in 1710.[2]

The exterior and interior walls are whitewashed and the simple pews around the walls face onto a central table. There is a gallery or stand at one end from which the meeting could be addressed. The meeting room is unadorned but has wooden panelling and wooden pillars to support the gallery. The roof structure can be seen above and the underside of the thatch. The glass in the windows is thought to be older than the building, having been recycled from another building.[1]

A single-storey extension for an entrance lobby, kitchen and lavatories was built in 1967. Both the main building and the lobby are thatched. There was a major restoration and re-thatching in 2010. The building is still in regular use, with a Quaker worship meeting every Sunday morning.[3]

There is a burial ground but only five headstones, all belonging to members of the Magor family, who died in the 19th century. It is the burial place of Catherine Payton Phillips.[4]

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gollark: It's possible that some of this perceived rarity is just a feedback loop of "hmm, people think it's rare, better try and get better offers" and "hmm, people think it's rare, better offer more".
gollark: Aaanad now I just saw - and missed - a Zyumorph due to wiki-checking what it was. Yay...
gollark: I wonder why that is.
gollark: Perhaps I should go to the desert for my xenowyrm hunting, then, and try and trade a mageia for a chrono.

References
  1. Sarah Chapman (2013). Iconic Cornwall. Alison Hodge Publishers. p. 28. ISBN 978-0-906720-88-2.
  2. Historic England. "The Friends Meeting House  (Grade I) (1140860)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  3. "Friends Meeting House, Come-to-Good". Heritage Gateway. Retrieved 13 August 2016.
  4. Phillips, Catherine (1797). Memoirs of the Life of Catherine Phillips, to which are added some of her Epistles. James Phillips.

Further reading
  • Patricia Griffith (1995) Early Quakers in Come to Good – pamphlet.

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