The current meeting house is the third to be built on the same site in Croydon.
Quakers have been living and meeting in Croydon since the earliest days of the movement in the 1650s. There are records of a regular meeting for worship starting from 1657. The first purpose built Meeting House was built in 1721 on the same site as our present one in Park Lane (then Back Lane). In 1794 the property was gifted to local Friends “upon trust that the said premises should at all times hereafter be used as a Meeting House for the religious worship of the people called Quakers”.
A new meeting house was built on the site in 1816.
From 1825 to 1879 a neighbouring building was established as a Quaker boarding school. The school moved further out of London, to Essex after a typhoid outbreak in the town.
In 1908 the new Adult School Hall was opened next to the meeting house, built to support the thriving adult school movement in Croydon. This Arts and Crafts style hall is now Grade II listed. For further information see the page about the hall.
Both the Meeting House and the boarding school building were destroyed in 1940 when a landmine which had been captured by the Germans was dropped on the site. The large hall was damaged and repaired. When the old Meeting House was destroyed Friends continued to worship in the (repaired) Adult School Hall until 1944, when it was requisitioned for accommodation for bombed-out residents, and as a refugee centre.
Meeting for worship resumed in the Adult School Hall until the current Meeting House was built and opened in 1957 with the words "We humbly dedicated this building to the worship of God and to the service of the community."
If you are interested in booking the Meeting House or Adult School Hall see Room Hire.