For our October 250 Across NC Series, we explore our state's vernacular architecture.

Vernacular architecture is the architecture style informed by a building’s native land and culture. For North Carolina, that looks like tobacco barns, textile mills, and mid-century suburbs. These buildings and places provide insights into our state’s cultural, racial, and economic landscape. Eastern North Carolina’s earliest architecture was most influenced by Virginia settlers like those of the Chesapeake and Tidewater region. These settlers participated in the slave economy by cultivating plantations that sold naval stores and cash crops through seaports to larger markets in major colonial cities and the Caribbean. Architectural traditions reflected early English-inspired house forms and styles such as Georgian and Federal styles and relied on timber frame traditions coupled with use of locally sourced brick. Swipe to see some examples all of which are Preservation North Carolina Protected Properties.