Quakers first met in Knaresborough in the late 17th century in private homes. In 1701 a meeting house was built at the top of Briggate and used until the Meeting was discontinued in 1826. The building then became a private house which was later demolished and the current fire station was built on the site.
In the 18th century it was thought that 1% of the population of Nidderdale was Quaker and there were several houses and areas of land in Quaker ownership.
A Meeting was started in Harrogate much later, probably in the mid 1830s. At that time there were no Quakers resident in the town so it was provided solely for the use of Friends visiting to ‘take the waters’. A meeting house was built in Chapel Street (now Oxford Street) in 1854 but after much alteration over the next 100 years it was sold in the 1960s and the present meeting house was built further from the town centre in Queen Parade.
There are two historic Quaker burial grounds nearby; one at Dacre, 7 miles from Harrogate and only accessible on foot. The other is in Scotton, near Knaresborough and is still open for green burials.