One of the nice things about showing strangers round our town, especially if they are from a different country, is that they can bring to our notice features that familiarity has made common place. I've lost count of the number of Americans who are knocked out by the fact that our houses are stone-built and, to them, seem to huddle together. One lady once told me that every house in the town would be a 'Landmark Property' in California, their equivalent of a historic monument. This came to mind during the first week in January when we had winds of over 100mph but apart from the odd slate blown off, no serious damage. The same weather in the South of England would have hit the headlines as a disaster. Of course there is a very good reason for the resilience of our houses, over the centuries we have worked out how to build houses that will stand our local conditions. I started to think about this and thought it might be a good idea to remind ourselves why we are so fortunate.
The first thing that came to mind was something I realised many years ago when I first started to look at Barlick. The more I learned the more I realised that the position of the town and its layout is no accident. If you go up onto Weets and look down on the town the first thing that strikes you is that on most days of the year, the wind is blowing onto your back and is much stronger than it felt down in the town centre. The bulk of the Weets acts as a windbreak sheltering us from the worst of the prevailing westerly winds. As this wind hits the east side of the hill it is forced upwards and this tends to make any rain it is carrying fall out on the moor before it gets to the town. I don't know the actual figures but the annual average rainfall on the far side of the hill will be more than it is in Barlick. The earliest settlers weren't daft, they knew the value of shelter from the wind.
As the town grew the dwellings tended to cluster together in groups. Barlick was a collection of these small settlements or 'folds' long before it got the name we call it today. Townhead and the bottom of Esp Lane was a small hamlet, Coates was a small village, there would be others and over time as they grew they clumped together into what we see as Barlick today. A question worth asking is why did they cluster in the first place? There was plenty of room, why not have individual farmsteads? I think one of the main reasons was mutual support. Remember that these could be violent times. In the 12th century the Cistercian monks from Fountains Abbey complained of Scots raiders and we have plenty of evidence that this was no exaggeration, it was like the wild west so it could be handy having neighbours if the wild men from the North arrived during the night. The houses also acted as weather protection for each other. This concept of breaking the wind before it hits an isolated house was well understood, look at the number of farms on the higher ground that have windbreak trees planted on the western side. Another strategy was orientation, look at any old building and you'll find it is invariably positioned so that it faces south and presents what is almost a blank wall to the prevailing wind.
As the town started to expand in the 17th century the rows of older houses in the centre were built. You can tell which they are, they all have grey stone slate roofs, Welsh Slate didn't reach Barlick until the railway came in the mid 19th century. The cheapest building material was the local stone which is very durable. Another way of reducing the cost was to build the cottages in rows which saved building one exterior wall. Some builders went even further and built two rows back to back which saved another wall. There are other advantages to this design, an ordinary mid-terrace house has only two exterior walls to lose heat through, a back to back has only one, making them easier to keep warm. The back to back has another advantage, it has only one door so there is no through draught, remember that doors didn't fit as well in those days and the wind could whistle in at the front and go straight through the house. Some older through houses like Hey Farm and the cottages on Crow Foot Row have no back doors for the same reason. These older terraces of cottages supported and sheltered each other.
When the town expanded again at the end of the 19th century the houses were larger and higher quality but were still built as stone terraces, the lessons of cost saving, durability and efficiency hadn't been forgotten, the main difference was that blue Welsh Slate was used as this was good roofing material and lighter than stone so roof timbers didn't need to be as heavy. The general rule is that any house with a grey slate roof was built before about 1880, the ones with blue slate came after.
So, we ended up with our typical Barlick townscape of terraces of stone houses and cottages huddled together against the weather and keeping as warm as possible. The high quality of the local stone means that it is as good now as the day it was quarried. Indeed, it may be better because once exposed to the air good stone tends to harden and improve. The only occasional problems stem from settlement of foundations and in some of the older houses a gable end might have to be rebuilt. They have served us well and will continue to do so for many years to come.
After 1920 very few houses were needed and apart from some detached large houses nothing was built until the modern building boom after WW2 when we got the first council housing and later the speculative building. These are all on the outskirts of the original town and it remains to be seen whether they will be a long-lived as the older stone houses, I know which I prefer!
Next time you are walking through the town take note of the buildings and look at them with a fresh eye. Try to work out which were built as cottages and then converted to shops. Admire the rows of big solid houses built in terraces which are still very desirable homes. Our ancestors remembered the lessons of history and built well. They gave us a legacy of solid property that we sometimes lose sight of but which strikes visitors immediately. There is more to them than meets the eye!
Rainhall Road. The shops on the left were all cottages originally.
