SIR John Kerr, chairman of the Ewecross Historical Society, welcomed guest speaker Kevin Illingworth to the meeting in Bentham Town Hall last Monday.
Mr Illingworth gave an illustrated lecture on Vernacular Architecture in Lancashire and parts of Yorkshire and Cumbria, dating from 1300 to around 1770.
Unusual buildings and features included a barn rethatched with heather, an outside wall made of clay, inside walls of vertical slabs of slate and weather walls (the weather wall is a double wall with a narrow gap next to the main gable wall to keep out driving rain).
He showed cruck-beamed and timber-framed houses and barns, some of which are open to the public. By 1600, stone or bricks began to be used by wealthier people, copied later by the yeomen.
Local examples included Bigber, Greenside, Kirkbeck and Hammerton Hall at Slaidburn.
The chairman thanked Mr Illingworth, who answered several questions.
In November, Graham Kemp will speak on the Love Life of John of Gaunt.
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