Solar panels were installed few years earlier and in 2017 the internal walls of the Meeting Room were removed and thoroughly insulated, loft insulation improved, windows & doors replaced with current standard double-glazed units. The kitchen was refurbished to contemporary standards.
The Meeting House continues to be used not only for the benefit of its worshipping members but for many groups large and small from the Peterborough community. Many feel the Meeting Room’s simple design and plain decoration is particularly peaceable and conducive to good meetings. This is a tribute to the architect, Leonard Brown. The garden and labyrinth contribute in no small measure to the overall feeling of calm and restoration.
Peterborough Quakers continue a long tradition of involvement in the community serving as hospital, hospice, prison and university chaplains and applying their dearly held testimonies to peace, sustainability, equality and simplicity.
Redevelopment of the large garden in which the Meeting House was situated was started to provide an attractive and peaceful facility for members, users and the community of Peterborough to enjoy. Planting is designed to reflect what Quakers refer to as testimonies to their key beliefs which are Truth and Integrity, Equality and Community, Peace and Earth and the Environment. A labyrinth is a well used addition.
The Meeting House was extended on the eastern end to enable the addition of disabled toilets and insertion of a staircase to create two rooms in the extensive loft space. This additional space enabled four rooms to be hired for meetings, etc. a facility that has become very valuable to many small groups from the Peterborough Community.
Peterborough Quaker Meeting House was opened. Designed by Quaker architect, Leonard Brown, from Welwyn Garden City hence some resemblance to architecture there. Built on the paddock/orchard/kitchen garden of Orchard House. Legend has it that Mrs Scott, of Orchard House, said she would much prefer Quakers at the bottom of her garden.
Features: A large Meeting Room, a smaller ground floor room which could be divided into two ‘class rooms’ by an oak surfaced folding door, a large kitchen and toilets. The all electric heating system was very advanced for 1936. The Meeting Room was heated by electric convector heaters built into the ceiling and electric skirting board heaters round the perimeter. A large car park was ambitious yet now inadequate. The front of the building faces south to the terrace and garden whilst the back is to the north and the entrance off Thorpe Road. This arrangement has been expressed cryptically as “The front faces the back and the back faces the front.”
The land cost £650 and the building (John Cracknell Ltd) £1900.
Norton Claypoole was born around 1640 to John and Mary Claypoole or Claypole of Northborough Manor and emigrated to Delaware in America in 1678. Norton, a friend of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania and also a Quaker, was a well-respected man and engaged in many legal positions including Justice of the Peace for Delaware from Christmas Day 1682. He died in 1688 leaving a wife and several children.
Claypoole had many siblings and his older brother James, who was born in 1634 and had also converted to Quakerism, sailed out to America a few years later. In 1681 and 1683 he purchased land in Pennsylvania, sending servants to prepare the land with crops and build a small house ahead of his arrival. He arrived with his wife and children in October 1683 and lived there until his death in 1687.
Their brother Edward also emigrated to America, moving on to settle in Barbados.
Many Americans can trace their family back to the Claypooles and proudly associate themselves with the family that once called Northborough Manor their home. Northborough Manor is a private home, but the gatehouse can be booked for holidays or vacations depending on which side of the Atlantic you call your home.
References:
A. Brunk, The Claypoole Family Joiners of Philadelphia: Their Legacy and the Context of Their Work, Chipstone, <http://www.chipstone.org/> [accessed 1 March 2021].
Geni.com
Wikitree.com
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