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The Buckingham Friends Meeting House is a historic Quaker meeting house at 5684 Lower York Road (
After this change in design, men and women would sit on separate sides of the partition for both worship and business meetings, with the partition closed only during business meetings. About this time written Quaker discipline became more standardized, which may have encouraged the two-cell form as a uniform meeting house design. In particular, marrying a non-Quaker became grounds for disownment or being "read out of the meeting." Since marriage was in the purview of the women's business meeting, their business meeting acquired a higher status and needed increased space.
The use of the Buckingham Meeting House as a model began within a few years of its completion. In New Jersey at least five meeting houses were built in the doubled style by 1788, with several being designed by committees who travelled to see the Meeting House.
The Quaker ideal of simplicity was perhaps ignored by the Buckingham Meeting House's Georgian architectural design, which may reflect the affluence of the Buckingham Quakers.Historic American Buildings Survey
(HABS), Buckingham Friends Meeting House, retrieved 2012-01-01.
SAH Archipedia Building Entry
* {{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Quaker meeting houses in Pennsylvania National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania 1705 establishments in Pennsylvania Churches in Bucks County, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania state historical marker significations Historic American Buildings Survey in Pennsylvania 18th-century Quaker meeting houses National Register of Historic Places in Bucks County, Pennsylvania
United States Route 202
U.S. Route 202 (US 202) is a spur route of US 2. It follows a northeasterly and southwesterly direction stretching from Delaware to Maine, also traveling through the states of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massa ...
) in Buckingham Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Built in 1768 in a "doubled" style, it is nationally significant as a model for many subsequent Friends Meeting House
A Friends meeting house is a meeting house of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), where meeting for worship is usually held.
Typically, Friends meeting houses are simple and resemble local residential buildings. Steeples, spires, and ...
s. It was declared a National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...
in 2003.
History
The first meeting house on the site was built from logs in 1705–1708 by EnglishQuakers
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 abil ...
, some of the earliest settlers in the area. The second meetinghouse was a wooden frame building. The third was a stone building built c. 1731. Remnants of some of these buildings, especially stone mounting blocks used to help mount horses, are scattered around the property. A stone schoolhouse was built to the east of the meetinghouse in 1798, and forms the nucleus of the current Buckingham Friends School
Buckingham Friends School, an independent Quaker school in Lahaska, Pennsylvania was founded in 1794. The current Quaker Meetinghouse was built in 1768. An addition was put on in the 1930s, followed by the gymnasium in 1955 and the lower schoo ...
. The current building was completed in 1768 and was the first of the doubled type meeting houses that became the standard form of Quaker meeting house for the next 100 years.
Earlier meeting houses were generally single-cell structures, that were often divided by a partition into two unequally sized for separate men's and women's business meetings. Men and women met together for worship and were separated for business meetings. Buckingham's design is a two-cell symmetrical form with roughly equal-sized sections.
After this change in design, men and women would sit on separate sides of the partition for both worship and business meetings, with the partition closed only during business meetings. About this time written Quaker discipline became more standardized, which may have encouraged the two-cell form as a uniform meeting house design. In particular, marrying a non-Quaker became grounds for disownment or being "read out of the meeting." Since marriage was in the purview of the women's business meeting, their business meeting acquired a higher status and needed increased space.
The use of the Buckingham Meeting House as a model began within a few years of its completion. In New Jersey at least five meeting houses were built in the doubled style by 1788, with several being designed by committees who travelled to see the Meeting House.
The Quaker ideal of simplicity was perhaps ignored by the Buckingham Meeting House's Georgian architectural design, which may reflect the affluence of the Buckingham Quakers.Historic American Buildings Survey(HABS), Buckingham Friends Meeting House, retrieved 2012-01-01.
See also
* Horsham Friends Meeting *List of National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania
This is a List of National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania. There are 169 in the state. Listed in the tables below are the 102 NHLs outside Philadelphia. For the 67 within Philadelphia, see List of National Historic Landmarks in Philadelphia ...
* National Register of Historic Places listings in Bucks County, Pennsylvania
References
External links
*SAH Archipedia Building Entry
* {{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Quaker meeting houses in Pennsylvania National Historic Landmarks in Pennsylvania Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania 1705 establishments in Pennsylvania Churches in Bucks County, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania state historical marker significations Historic American Buildings Survey in Pennsylvania 18th-century Quaker meeting houses National Register of Historic Places in Bucks County, Pennsylvania