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     DENTDALE    In the Yorkshire Dales National Park

 

 
   
Quaker Meeting House

        

  Brigflatts, near Sedbergh, Cumbria, is one of the most famous Quaker meeting houses, known and loved by Friends all over the world. Far beyond the boundaries of the Society it is acknowledged for all the simplicity of its lime-washed stone walls and interior woodwork - panelling, columns and balustrading - as one of England’s vernacular gems. For many,  the peace and tranquillity of Brigflatts leave a lasting impression.

Three-and-a-quarter centuries after George Fox first visited the hamlet of Brigflatts, it is still the home of a small Friends’ meeting. It receives more than 2,000 visitors a year from all over the world, many coming to explore the "1652 Country", the birthplace of Quakerism. Visiting groups and individuals regularly join local Friends in worship on Sunday mornings.

Friends first bought a piece of land there for a burial ground in the dangerous Restoration year, 1660. During the great persecution of religious dissent which followed, they built the meeting house in 1675. It was a defiant illegal act of faith: deliberate, conscientious civil disobedience, a full fourteen years before the Toleration Act allowed Quakers and other dissenters to worship freely. Brigflatts meeting house stands as a proud and permanent monument  to  all  those courageous  dissenters  whose  bitter suffering and inspired struggles created a new pluralist society, with freedom of speech, of worship, and of political opinion.

Substantially unchanged today, Brigflatts remains a living, working, active memorial to the founders of the Society of Friends. It has been in continuous use since built and today averages some 18 adults and 12 children each Sunday for Meeting and Worship.