Quaker Meeting House
Rookhow, Cumbria
1725 Quaker Meeting House in 12 acres of ancient woodland with group bunkbarn accommodation.
Pevsner's book Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (page 697) says that this is the 3rd church on the site: 1689; 1822; and 1864-5. The latest church was designed by EG Paley (of Sharp, Paley and Austen) in 1862.
The apse was inspired by an Italian church which Paley and Austen saw whilst there on tour.
The first church was a Chapel of Ease in the Kirkby in Furness parish. It was built to save locals from a twelve mile round trip to services at the church in Kirkby, then it became a parish in its own right, before in the 1970s becoming one of five churches in the Broughton in Furness parish.
Woodland is a very quiet backwater, we find slow worms in the churchyard, swallows nest in the porch and occasionally a barn owl roosts in there too, there are also a myriad of moths and butterflies around, you never quite know what you're going to find.
We do have a fairly recently installed toilet in it's on building outside the northeast corner of the church, it's a blessed relief for many walkers in the summer.