Howgills in Letchworth Garden City,

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, England, is a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

building on the Register of Historic England in use as a

Meeting House A meeting house (meetinghouse, meeting-house) is a building where religious and sometimes public meetings take place. Terminology Nonconformist Protestant denominations distinguish between a * church, which is a body of people who believe in Chr ...

for the

Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

(Quakers).Howgills (Society of Friends Meeting House); A Grade II Listed Building in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire
- Historic England database Gate Howgills Letchworth

Howgills was built on South View in 1907 to a free-style

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

design by Robert Bennett (1878–1956) and Benjamin Wilson Bidwell (1877–1944), typical with this firm of architects, although it is thought the design is mostly by Bidwell, a Quaker himself.Josh Tidy
''A-Z of Letchworth Garden City: Places-People-History''
Amberley Publishing Limited - Google Books Associates of

Parker Parker may refer to: Persons * Parker (given name) * Parker (surname) Places Place names in the United States *Parker, Arizona *Parker, Colorado * Parker, Florida * Parker, Idaho * Parker, Kansas * Parker, Missouri * Parker, North Carolina *Park ...

& Unwin who were closely connected with the Garden City Movement, Bennett and Bidwell opened an office in Letchworth in 1907 and over the next thirty years went on to design many distinctive buildings in the town. The construction was undertaken by local builders Palmer & Ray. The

with its large, galleried wood-panelled central meeting room is based on Briggflatts in Cumbria and was named after the Howgill Fells that surround that hall. The building is of two storeys with an irregular façade of three bays with a projecting entrance in the centre bay with a gable roof. The brick chimneys stacks are tall with moulded caps, while the stack on the front façade has weathered offsets. The walls have a roughcast surface while the casement windows with leaded lights sit within stone surrounds. The entrance arch is recessed and has boarded double-doors. The carved timber inscriptions over the entrance hall and meeting room fireplaces are apparently early work by Eric Gill.Friends Meeting House, Letchworth - Quaker Heritage website
/ref> The decorative copper plaque in the porch is in the

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

style and reads: "THIS BUILDING ERECTED 1907 IS THE GIFT OF JULIET RECKITT TO THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS". Howgills Letchworth Garden City view

One of Letchworth Garden City’s most distinguished and unique early buildings, Howgills was commissioned by Juliet E. Reckitt, the philanthropic niece of the

Hull Hull may refer to: Structures * Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship * Submarine hull Mathematics * Affine hull, in affi ...

industrialist Sir James Reckitt; she had moved to Letchworth in its early days and allowed the local Society of Friends (Quakers) to meet in the large Meeting Room in the building. In 1913 she donated Howgills to the Quakers while maintaining a flat for herself within the building. In 1934 she also helped with finance when the Society of Friends decided to purchase the freehold. The horror writer

W. F. Harvey William Fryer Harvey AM (14 April 1885 – 4 June 1937), known as W. F. Harvey, was an English writer of short stories, most notably in the macabre and horror genres. Among his best-known stories are " August Heat" and "The Beast with Five F ...

was a member of the congregation. His funeral service was held at Howgills before his burial in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin in Old Letchworth. Howgills has been a Grade II listed building on the Register of Historic England since 1979. Howgills Letchworth Garden City plaque

References

External links

Letchworth Quaker Meeting - Quakers in Britain database
*[https://hertfordshirechurches.wordpress.com/2015/01/19/friends-meeting-house-howgills-south-viiew-letchworth-garden-city/ Friends Meeting House, Howgills, South View, Letchworth Garden City - Hertfordshire Churches in Photographs] {{DEFAULTSORT:Howgills, Letchworth Garden City Grade II listed buildings in Hertfordshire Letchworth Buildings and structures in Letchworth Architectural history Architecture in England 1907 establishments in England Quaker meeting houses in England Grade II listed churches in Hertfordshire Churches completed in 1907 20th-century Quaker meeting houses