Building record 1320905000 - FRIENDS HOUSE, 25 LONDON ROAD

Grade II. Early C19. Red brick, Welsh slates. 2 storeys, eaves cornice. 3 sashes in reveals under flat arches. Trellis porch. Grey brick side elevation. Central panel over porch inscribed Friends House. Nos 21 to 25 (odd) form a group (B1).
In 1930 the High Wycombe Quaker Meeting purchased the freehold of a house on London Road from Fred Skull for £1,750. The architect Sam North was appointed to make the necessary alterations for a meeting house and self-contained warden's flat upstairs. George North designed some new furnishings, and older furnishings from the former meeting houses on Corporation Street and Crendon Lane were also re-used. The new meeting house opened in March 1931. In 1982 a new single-storey kitchen and classroom block was added at the rear of the meeting house. See report for detailed description and photos (B2).
Grade II. Quaker meeting house. Probably early C19, adapted in 1930 to designs by Sam North, extended in 1982 to a design by Roy Roe Associates. Reasons for Designation:
Architectural interest: - as a modest, vernacular, meeting house serving the characteristically simple requirements of Quaker worship; - typifying the development of the meeting house type as a C19 villa adapted for worship, retaining the legibility of the former domestic dwelling; - for its late inclusion of a timber partition and other fittings which hark back to divisions of space and internal arrangements in earlier Quaker meeting houses. Historic interest: - associated with the early development of Quakerism in Buckinghamshire. Group value: - with numerous listed buildings on the north side of London Road including 21 and 23 London Road and Rye Cottage (all Grade II-listed) (B3).