Rochester Friends' Meeting House

Rochester Friends’ Meeting House dates back to 1780 and has served well the city’s Quaker community. It was built on the site of an earlier structure from the 1670s which would have been a focus for persecution when Tory mobs sometimes engaged in arsoning dissenting places of worship. Curiously, a report about the current building states:

In 1986 the building was found to be in a dangerous condition, its footings discovered as

having been built on Roman and medieval rubbish pits rather than solid ground. Works of

underpinning, partial rebuilding, internal adaptation and extension costing £250,000 were

completed in 1990 (architects Belcher & Clapson). 

The fact that the building still stands and the Friends still gather suggests that Belcher and Clapson did a good job, as well as those tasked with raising that eye-watering sum. Nevertheless, the phrase “built on Roman and medieval rubbish” made me smile. I guess this is one of the drawbacks of having a church or chapel in an old settlement. Yet there is a theological warning, too. Building our theology (beliefs) and ecclesiology (church) upon old, but manmade, foundations, will only cause an edifice to wobble and crumble, no matter how smart the brickwork, how straight the jambs. Only God’s word, the Bible, provides a base strong and sturdy enough for the winds of culture and the tides of persecution to do their worst but for the church to survive.

And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. Matthew 7:26-27

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