Stanbury Friends

A small early Friends' burial ground exists in Stanbury in Haworth parish.  It appears that local William Clayton had heard George Fox himself preach in Yorkshire during the early years of the Commonwealth and established a meeting in his home village from which burials took place over the next sixty-two years.  Although early Friends probably wouldn’t themselves have chosen either a cross or the nickname Quaker for their commemoration in the external wall of the burial ground today, it is a fascinating survival to have from the religious tumult of the time; the hamlet didn't have an Anglican building until the nineteenth century so they may have had less scrutiny or interference from the incumbents of Haworth of the time than some other Friends' meetings would have done.