Friends Meeting House, Monkseaton

This Friends Meeting House is located at No. 23, Front Street, in Monkseaton. The building was originally a single storey cottage (Gourd Cottage) associated with Monkseaton Farm. It was extended and became a Quaker meeting house in 1911. The building is included on the List of Buildings, Parks and Gardens of Special Local Architectural or Historic Interest ('Local List') for North Tyneside.

Until the mid-nineteenth century the main route through [Monkseaton] village was Bygate, while Front Street was a farm track. Here stood Gourd Cottage, a modest single-storey stone-built structure of late eighteenth or early nineteenth century date, which belonged to the Dairy Farm Estate (Monkseaton Farm). Gourd Cottage was sold at auction in 1892 to Joseph Robson, a draper of Newcastle who was married to Charlotte Greenacre, a convinced Quaker. According to Grant, it was they who added the second storey, in 1902-3, along with a new staircase wing at the rear. Joseph died in 1905, leaving most of his estate to his widow, who continued to live at Gourd Cottage. When she died in 1910, she left the property and most of its grounds to the Friends for use as a Meeting House, along with funds for any necessary alterations....The first meeting for worship was held on 20 August 1911. At the outbreak of the First World War the meeting house was temporarily requisitioned by the War Office, but returned to Quaker use in 1916....During the Second World War the Meeting House was a base for welfare work, and temporarily housed the congregation from the Congregationalist church in Chapel Lane after that building was bombed in 1940. After the war, Whitley Bay enjoyed its heyday as a seaside resort, and the Meeting flourished.....

Quaker Meeting Houses Heritage Project