The Religious Society of Friends Quaker Burial Ground Somerset, England

09866

The Religious Society of Friends Quaker Burial Ground

High Street

Street

Somerset

England

A Quaker meeting house had been established in Street by the late 1650s with a Quaker burial ground. In 1825 Cyrus Clark and his younger brother James established a shoe-making business which became very successful (and still continues as C. & J. Clark International Ltd). The original factory, built in 1829, and the houses of the owners stood in the High Street immediately west of the Quaker meeting house. In 1850 the old meeting house was taken down and replaced by a large new building in a classical style designed by J. F. Cotterell of Bath, a Quaker and friend of the Clarks. The building contained two meeting rooms, and at one end a two-storey dwelling for a caretaker. The Quaker burial ground was greatly extended in 1899. There are a large number of stone burial markers including many to members of the Clark family, including Cyrus Clark (1801-66) and his younger brother James Clark (1811-1906) the founders of C. & J. Clark (Shoes).