The Religious Society of Friends, more usually known as the Quakers because the movement’s founder George Fox, told a judge to quake "before the authority of God”, has a long, illustrious and at times dramatic history in Colchester. The town has for many centuries been a hot bed of Non-Conformity and in the later part of the 17th century it became a centre of the Quaker movement.
They rented a large, converted property along with a burial ground in 1663 near St Martin’s Church, West Stockwell Street, in the Dutch quarter which was the spiritual home of Quakers in Colchester. The alley connecting East Stockwell Street and West Stockwell Street, originally called St. Martin’s Lane, is now called Quakers Alley after it.
In 1683 the Quakers acquired the ancient St Helen's chapel at the junction of Maidenburgh Street and St. Helen’s Lane. In the 18th and 19th centuries the number of Colchester Quakers declined and in 1871 the West Stockwell Street building was gutted by fires and the site was sold.
At this time there was a Quaker revival in the town, and a new site was acquired in Sir Isaac’s Walk, where a replacement was built in 1872 and extended in 1892. It became too expensive to maintain and in 1938 it was sold to Lexden & Winstree District Council, the meeting room becoming a council chamber.
A new smaller meeting house in neo-Georgian style was built nearby in Shewell Road. This was sold to the council in 1971 and has since been redeveloped as part of the Culver Square shopping centre.
In the early 1970s, they acquired St Mary’s House which is in Church Street adjoining the churchyard of the former church of St. Mary at the Walls, now the Colchester Art Centre. It is a late Georgian building with an earlier timber framed rear range and other outbuildings. The frontage was rebuilt in 1802 by William Mason, a solicitor whose clients included the painter, John Constable.
By 1971 the building was in a run-down state, and after initial surveys the Quakers considered total demolition. Instead, they decided to retain the front and sides and rebuilt inside. Redevelopment behind the façade included the addition of a hexagonal meeting room at the back. The new facilities opened in 1974 and it is still the Meeting House of the Quakers in Colchester.