The first Quaker Meeting House was on the north side of what is now Colliton Street, Dorchester, when that street was known as Pease Lane. Quakers bought the cottage in 1712 for £44.8s.0d. In a nearby burial ground, eight Quakers were buried between 1715 and 1739. The Meeting House was repaired in 1723 and a larger room for meetings created. William Herbert oversaw the work on behalf of the Quarterly (Regional) Meeting. He was a very diligent Weymouth Quaker.
Dorchester Meeting closed in 1740, but a small Meeting continued in Charminster. One Quarterly Meeting a year was still held in Dorchester until 1749, but so few people attended that it was then moved
For nearly 200 years there was no Quaker witness in Dorchester and Weymouth until the 1940s, when a small group of Dorchester Quakers began to meet. In 1979, they bought the present building in Holloway Road, Fordington. It was converted into a Quaker Meeting House, from being a busy public house called the Union Arms. The Weymouth Meeting members currently join with Dorchester either in person or on zoom.
To find out more information about Dorchester Quakers get in touch or come along on a Sunday morning. For more about Quakers in Britain use the links under 'Discover Quakers' below.