Peace & QUIET.
- Words Francis Martin
- Photography Alixe Lay
In the UK, a centuries-old Quaker meeting house encourages quiet reflection.
In the absence of any other sounds, the ticking clock fills the hall. The windows are set high in the whitewashed walls, in order to prevent worshippers from being distracted. It’s an old building, with faded beams and leaded windows, but its simplicity belies its age—the retrofitted metal girders that brace the walls and ceiling are the only indicator that the building is starting to feel its 350 years.
The Friends Meeting House in Hertford, 20 miles north of London, is the oldest Quaker place of worship in continuous use. It was built in 1670, little more than two decades after the movement was born in the ruins of the English Civil War. The Religious Society of Friends—better known by the sneering insult, the “Quakers”—was part of an upsurge in nonconformist Christian m...
