How to find
Coanwood FMH
Coanwood FMH (Ordnance Survey NY70995893) is about 2.5 miles along the road from Coanwood village to Whitfield. Leave the A69 at Haltwhistle to Coanwood. Turn left at Coanwood crossroads to Whitfield. Follow signs to Whitfield - watch for a sharp left turn to Whitfield at a T junction. You will pass Hargill House, then cross a small new bridge. Coanwood FMH is signed on your right at Burn House, a large farmstead. Enter over the burn bridge and park by the barn – please respect the farmstead and its livestock. The Meeting House is open – if not, then by telephoning 01434 320256.
The Exterior
A single storey stone rectangular building - 13.1 metres long by 6.2 metres wide - and the date 1760 is inscribed on the lintel above the door in the south side. The original 18th century roof was covered by heather-thatch. However, it was replaced early in the 19th century by one with a double course of flagstones above the eaves, Welsh slates, and a stone ridge. There are three original windows on the south side, all with 12 panes. Attached to the front of the east wall is an earth closet.
The Interior
The interior has a stone flagged floor and is divided into two by a panelled wooden screen. The larger room to the west is the main meeting room with a central aisle dividing seven rows of open-backed wooden benches facing west. At the west end, two additional rows face the other seven and are raised – sometimes called Elders’ benches.
The smaller room to the east has a fireplace in the centre of the east wall. At one time, this room was used by the Coanwood Reading Society, and there was once a small library in the meeting house with loan records going back to 1824.
Coanwood
Friends
Meeting House
Northumberland
an historic Quaker
Meeting House
built in 1760
The Quaker Meeting House at Coanwood stands
in a remote upland valley, to the south of Hadrian’s Wall. There are
many walkers’ paths nearby. Coanwood is one of the oldest of only a few
Meeting Houses left in Northumberland. It is historically important as
it has not been modified since it was built in 1760. There is an older
Meeting House at Allendale, for example, but it has been modified.
Coanwood FMH is Listed Grade II* and is now owned and cared for by the
Historic Chapels Trust.
The Burial Ground
There is
a sloping walled graveyard to the front of the building with headstones
dating from well back in the 19th century. Many gravestones
bear witness to the connection between Coanwood Friends Meeting House
and the Wigham family.
The Wigham Family and
Coanwood FMH
The
Wighams are a well known family in this part of Northumberland.
Although their name is first mentioned in 1539, their early history
becomes clear only a century or so later.
In 1657, the manors of East and West Coanwood were conveyed to Thomas Wallace of Ashholme. One record then indicates that Cuthbert Wigham bought both manors for £300 in 1659. However, another record indicates that Mathew Wigham - son and heir of Cuthbert, who died in 1673 - was lord of only East Coanwood in 1676, West Coanwood still being owned by the Wallace family.
Mathew Wigham and his wife, Alice, had at least four sons and four daughters. Mathew left his property to his second son, William, when he died in 1702 as the oldest son, another Cuthbert Wigham, had already died. Little is known of this William Wigham except that he married Mabel Hutchinson, and died in 1715. Their first son and William’s heir was also called Cuthbert. There is a record that this Cuthbert, in his early years, “took pleasure in loose and unprofitable company, delighting in vain sports”.
But, in 1722, Cuthbert married
Elizabeth Dixon and, about 1734, joined the Society of Friends
(Quakers) which was already well established in Allendale. He then
founded a meeting of the Society of Friends in Coanwood and, in 1760,
the present Meeting House was built at a cost of £104 on a plot
of land given by Cuthbert. This Cuthbert Wigham died in 1780,
having sold the family’s manorial rights in 1758.
Hexham
Quakers and Coanwood FMH
Each year in September, Hexham Quaker Meeting holds a Meeting for Worship and Family Picnic at Coanwood FMH. Friends from Northumbria Monthly Meeting and Carlisle Monthly Meeting join with Hexham to worhsip in the atmosphere of a plain and simple historic Quaker Meeting House.
The
Historic Chapels Trust (HCT)
St George's German Lutheran Church
55 Alie Street,
London E1 8EB
Tel: 020 7481 0533
