Ampleforth Meeting was settled from Thirsk at some point after 1669, and formed part of Thirsk Monthly Meeting. In the mid 1660s local Quakers included members of the Garbutt, Baites, Dale and Swailes families. Thomas Swailes died in York Castle in 1678 after imprisonment for non-payment of tithes. After meeting in various villages in Ryedale for many years, a Meeting House with a burial ground was built in 1693 in Carr Close (now Westwood Lane) in Ampleforth, on land leased from William Stead. The majority of local Friends came from Helmsley, but the Meeting also included the parishes of Coxwold, Kilburn and Scawton. By 1743 only two of the 59 families in Ampleforth were Quaker. The Meeting changed its name to Helmsley in 1797 and by 1803, was meeting in a house rented by Simon Hutchinson in Bridge Street, Helmsley. By 1812, the number of Friends had outgrown the size of the premises. A new building was completed the following year, on the same site. The Meeting was transferred to Guisborough Monthly Meeting in 1827, and then Pickering Monthly Meeting in 1833. It was discontinued in 1841 and its remaining members joined Kirkbymoorside Meeting. Special meetings for worship were held in Helmsley in 1876 and 1877, as part of a wider Quarterly Meeting effort to spread the Quaker message, but this did not lead to a revival of the local Meeting.
From the guide to the Records of Helmsley Preparative Meeting of the Society of Friends, 1783-1814, (GB 206 Leeds University Library)
