A NEW book on one of Craven's oldest and most historically important buildings is to be launched on Saturday, April 8, with a special event.

There will be food, music, tours and guest speakers at Airton Friends' Meeting House, which was built in the early 17th century and is thought to be one of the oldest Quaker meeting places in the world.

The book, 'Hidden in Plain Sight - history and architecture of the Airton Meeting House' by archaeologist Laurel Phillipson and vernacular buildings specialist Alison Armstrong, outlines the latest research on the building. Today, the meeting house is still used for regular Quaker worship.

The launch event will run 11am-5pm, and at 2.30pm Paul Parker, of the national organisation of Quakers, will speak on 'Who are the Quakers and why do they matter today?' The afternoon will finish with a short meeting for worship. All are welcome to attend at any time during the event, organisers have said.

The book outlines how Airton Meeting House was built early in the 17th century on the foundations and re-used components of an older, perhaps monastic, stone barn. The replacement structure was never intended for or used as a barn, but was purpose-built as an unusually large meeting house in a small rural village.

Wilf Fenten, of the Airton Friends' meeting, said: "Until 1652, it was probably a regional, and perhaps the national, headquarters of the Seekers, who remain one of the most attractive and most elusive of the numerous 16th and 17th century English religious movements.

"The Seekers deliberately avoided calling attention to themselves. They were not exactly secretive, but by having as their meeting place a barn-like building in an out-of-the-way village, they managed to remain hidden in plain sight.

"This explains, for example, why the entrance to the main meeting room is at the back of the building, facing well away from the road."

George Fox, principal founder of the Quaker movement, would have travelled through Airton in June 1652 while walking from Pendle Hill to the midsummer fair at Sedbergh. He probably preached in the Airton Meeting House and may have stayed overnight in Airton or nearby. Fox’s preaching to assembled Seekers at Sedbergh in June 1652 is generally credited as a founding event of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers.