Brighton Friends Meeting House

The Brighton Friends Meeting House is a Friends meeting house (Quaker place of worship) in the centre of Brighton, part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England. The building, which dates from 1805, replaced an earlier meeting house of 1690 what was then a small fishing village on the Sussex coast. Located at the junction of Ship Street and Prince Albert Street in The Lanes, the heart of Brighton's "old town" area, its architectural and historic importance has been recognised by English Heritage's granting of Grade II listed status.HistoryThe Quaker community in Brighton had been prevented from congregating in public by the 1664 Conventicle Act, but some freedom was granted after the Act of Toleration 1689 was passed under William III and Mary II's joint sovereignty. By 1690, the community acquired a former malthouse and some adjoining land, which became their first permanent meeting house and a burial ground respectively. This stood near the junction of North Street and New Road, where the Pavilion Theatre now stands. When some pleasure gardens were laid out next to the meeting house in the 1790s, the community sold its grounds (known as Quaker's Croft and extending to 1acre) to the Prince Regent, and sold the building separately; it was immediately demolished by its new owner. They used the £1,800 funds to buy a plot of land east of Ship Street for £1,000 and build a new meeting house, accessed by a narrow passageway next to two cottages which came with the land. It had an attached caretaker's cottage, and opened for worship in 1805. A large extension was added to the north in 1850; and in 1876, another extension was built to house educational facilities. This is now used for various cultural activities as well.