There has been an active Quaker Meeting in Edinburgh since the earliest days of Quakerism (which was born in North West England in 1652). George Fox visited Edinburgh in 1656 and was thrown out of the city for his pains, an experience to which he was accustomed. You can see the eighteenth-century Meeting House in the south east corner of the Pleasance complex, now owned by the University of Edinburgh and used as a Festival venue. There are Quaker gravestones against the wall nearby. We vacated that building during the last century, when our home moved to Stafford Street, in the New Town. A second Quaker Meeting was also started during this period, and now meets at the Open Door in Morningside.
The Victoria Terrace building, erected in the 1850s as the Original Secession Church, served as the Boys Brigade HQ from the 1950s until Quakers bought it in the 1980s. Partly because of the building’s central location, the idea of using it as a Fringe venue immediately occurred so it has been Venue 40 every year since 1989, with a vegetarian café and a small theatre. Worship continues here on Sundays at 11.00 and on Wednesdays at 12.30 throughout the year, including at Festival time.
The venue is run by Quakers. The Venue Managers also run the Meeting House and the staff are volunteers from the local and wider community, Quakers or friends of Quakers. All the profit we make from running the venue for three weeks (usually about £8,000) goes to charity. Our involvement in the arts is just one aspect of our wish to express our faith through engagement with and in the world.
Thank you for being here and thank you for supporting us.
All the quotations on this website marked ‘QFP’ are from ‘Quaker Faith and Practice’, the book of discipline of Quakers in Britain, which is updated every generation in recognition of our experience that our understanding of truth moves on. Click here to read an online, searchable version of Quaker Faith and Practice.
You can find out more about Quakers in Britain at www.quaker.org.uk .