Swarthmoor Hall
| Swarthmoor Hall | |
| Lancashire | |
|---|---|
.JPG) Swarthmoor Hall | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SD281772 |
| Location: | 54°11’11"N, 3°6’7"W |
| History | |
| Built 1568 | |
| For: | George Fell |
| Country house | |
| Information | |
| Website: | swarthmoorhall.co.uk |
Swarthmoor Hall is a stone-built mansion in Swarthmoor, in the Furness area of Lancashire. The house was the home of Thomas and Margaret Fell, the latter an important player in the founding of the Religious Society of Friends, known as the Quakers, in the 17th century.
The Hall is a Grade II* listed building.[1] It remains in use today as a Quaker retreat house.
History
The house was built by a lawyer named George Fell in about 1568. The Hall was inherited by his son Thomas, a lawyer and later member of parliament, Vice Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and an influential supporter of Parliament during the Civil War. In 1634 Thomas married Margaret Askew the Hall became their family home.
In 1652, George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement, visited the Hall. Thomas Fell was travelling at the time, on circuit in his role as a judge, but Fox had an audience with Margaret, who became interested in his new doctrines. She arranged for him to preach in St Mary's Church in nearby Ulverston and at the Hall. During his time there, many people were convinced of the virtue of his teachings.
When Thomas Fell returned home, he was persuaded by his wife and some others to listen to Fox, who successfully appealed to his pro-Parliamentary sentiments. Fell was never totally convinced by Fox's religious teachings, but he did allow his home to be used as a meeting house for the early gatherings of the new Religious Society of Friends. Among those connected with the meeting were the missionary preachers Alice and Thomas Curwen, natives of nearby Baycliff, who were active in the Furness district, then in New England, Barbados and Nevis, and later in Huntingdonshire and other parts of Britain. The meeting continued to use the hall until 1691, when a meeting house was built nearby.
Thomas Fell died in 1658. Eleven years later George Fox married the widowed Margaret Fell and, when not travelling, occasionally lived at Swarthmoor. Fox died in London in 1691 and Margaret died at the Hall in 1702.
The London Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends purchased the Hall in 1951 for £9,000 and it still belongs to the Society.
The annual Swarthmore Lecture is one of a series of lectures, started in 1908, addressed to the Britain Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. The Quaker-founded Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania was named after Swarthmoor Hall. Swarthmoor is one of the four houses (Swarthmoor, Firbank, Pendle, Briggflatts) at the Quaker boarding school Bootham School in York, and it was one of the three houses at Great Ayton Friends' School.
Outside links
References
- ↑ National Heritage List 1270174: Swarthmoor Hall