Raikes Parade Society of Friends, Blackpool

The meeting house does not have a graveyard.

Sadly, there is at present no Quaker Meeting in Blackpool or the Fylde. The Blackpool Meeting was laid down early in 2012 when the last four Friends could no longer support it.

Blackpool Meeting was settled in 1904 and at first grew slowly, gathering in a room over a shop in Caunce Street in central Blackpool. Not until about 1930 was the little rented upper room filled. A site for a meeting house was acquired at 30A Raikes Parade where in 1932 the Meeting House was built at a cost of £1,600, the meeting room and classroom well proportioned, restful in colour and form.

This was very well attended in the 1930s and 1940s by people opposed to the war who welcomed the Quaker peace testimony. As well as Sunday morning meeting, worshippers from other churches came for Sunday night services with hymn singing. Old Blackpool Friends had tales of the appalling hardship and abuse endured by conscientious objectors and their families, unemployed and held in contempt. Yet they also had good memories of a meeting house full of people of all ages.

In later years, the meeting house was used every day of the week by various Alcoholics Anonymous groups and their support groups. For this the Friends charged them deliberately small rents, seeing this as a vital social service in a town shamefully described as the alcohol capital of Lancashire. Before the meeting house was sold, care was taken to be sure that all the AA groups had found suitable places to meet.

This site provides historical information about churches, other places of worship and cemeteries. It has no connection with the churches etc. themselves. For current information you should contact them directly.

It was located at SD3134736135 (Lat/Lon 53.816942, -3.044244). You can see this on maps provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)