Hello Cyber friends;

Miles Louis is a architectural historian in Austraila. He has written several papers on the history of carpentry. The link below is loaded with interesting images he collected and put into a copyrighted presentation.

http://mileslewis.net/pdf/history-of-building/traditional-framing.pdf

Enjoy;
Jim

Very interesting, thanks for posting...

An interesting link, so thanks for that. However his detail on the thousands of years development of Japanese timber work is confined to pictures of a couple of scrolls taken from Coaldrake's book, and in the one spot I do see a reference, plate 31, he gives an inaccurate term for a Japanese pit saw. It's not called an 'oga'.

So, in that realm of investigation/scholarship at least, it appears he could study a bit more. His one source, Coaldrake's book, suffers from errors in its content, as does pretty much any book on a trade written by an academic who does not practice the trade with his/her hands. Zero depiction of Chinese timber framing also, of which there is much extant evidence.

A few neat pictures, but that presentation appears to be a very general survey. Carpentry history is a big topic!

Here is another link with numerous photos of medieval framing in Hampshire, England. Click on the links for each building, they are in order by age from the 13th century.

http://www.medievalarchitecture.net/photo_archive.html

Enjoy;

Jim

Jim,

Thanks for the link. There are some great images on the site. Thirteen years ago, while doing a study abroad I was able to get inside a few medevil buildings in Oxfordshire, but nothing quite like these buildings. I still find it stunning that Hampshire, England probably has more preserved 13th and 14th century buildings than Massachusetts has 18th centruty buildings.

I just hope that sometime in the near future the US government can find a way to protect our architectural heritage at least half as well as the English do.

Hi Jim & DBaily,

It is easy to form a generalised and maybe quite incorrect impression of the state of building conservation here in Hampshire, England. I am in regular contact with Richard Haddlesey and have been inside most of the buildings that feature in the photo collage on his website. Most of these buildings were originally researched and recorded by members of the Hampshire Field Club and in particular by Elizabeth Lewis, Kenneth & Edward Roberts and Nigel Fradgely (RCHM). I have even made my own small contribution towards this growing body of knowledge.

Examining a selection of 100 or so seriously old buildings does not provide a truly representative sample of the styles and techniques employed in timber framed buildings in the Western home counties of England (Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire). Most of the old buildings that have survived have done so not because of enlightened building conservation policy since today's "building conservation officer" only came into place in the mid 1980's. I can recall a period back in the late 1960's when the owners of similar cottages were being served with "unfit for human habitation" demolition notices because they did not have adequate indoor plumbing and if it was too expensive to effect improvements then maybe the building owner elected to sell or was forced to demolish.

In our own village of Bramley , North Hampshire the American army preparing for the "D" Day landings had some fun using their tanks to demolish 4 thatched timber framed cottages that previously stood at Hollycross farm crossroads. They did not uses live munitions but instead choose to drive straight through the cottages and in the process pulverised them to matchwood. These energetic young men were our saviours and so no bad feeling exists today amongst villagers about this sad loss from the historic housing stock. Maybe the American Army and the TFG could come and rebuild them ?

What goes around comes around and it is now the turn of the buildings occupied by the American soldiers (an ablution block) that is now a cause for some concern today. Inside this block graffittii still remains in place scribed by those young men who were about to sacrifice their lives on the beaches of Normandy. It is heartbreaking to read some of the enscriptions. This building is slowly slipping back into the landscape being now totally submerged by ivy.

I had hoped that we have learnt a lot more about our built heritage since those previous uninformed times but alas a loss of our historic housing stock still continues to happen expecially on unidentified buildings that are not "listed". For example, I know of 2 cruck framed buildings in Oxfordshire that are not listed and Surrey has only one well known cruck framed building but even with this rarity value it is not listed. Listing affords a degree of protection but since most of the designations were based on "drive by" type surveys the conservation officer still might have no real knowledge of the makeup or history of a particular building and so internal changes can still proceed unchecked especially since the conservation officer has no power of entry.

It is worth keeping in mind that buildings exists to serve the needs of people and not the other way round.

The people of Hampshire acknowledge and salute the ultimate sacrifice made by some of the American and Canadian soldier's whose names are "on the wall" of the ablution block.

Regards

Ken Hume

You are welcome, DBailly.

Ken, The fact that buildings have not been "protected" until fairly recently is what makes the number of ancient survivals awsome.The US is way behind Europe in our understandng and protection of buildings.

Thanks for the brief history of building conservation. A very active TFG member is employed as an instructor at the Virginia Military Institute, a perfect match. If the US military could put the cost of one cruse missile into the project we could do a "smash up" job with paid travel and everything and have something that lasts for 500 years (with maintenance)!

Speaking of crucks, I came across this site linking a 100+ page report just on cruck buildings!

http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/cbaresrep/pdf/042/042tl001.pdf


Enjoy;
Jim

Hi Jim,

The "report" that you reference is an extract taken from the Cruck Catalogue published some time ago by the CBA edited by Nat Alcock. Unfortunately this book is now out of print but I do have a complete version of the whole book (184 pages) in pdf format (3mb) if this would be of any use to you ?

Nat is currently working with us in Steventon, Olde Berkshire where we are examining 2 seriously old cruck buildings. Dendro on the first cruck has failed to yield a date but since this is part of building complex where the main range dated to 1358 we will now try radio carbon dating to see whether the cruck is older or younger than the main range. A few houses along the road we have a similar situation where the main range has dated to 1299. Now that's a real gobsmacker to see first hand.

The reality is that we don't really know the full extent of vernacular buildings that still exist in our towns and villages, nor do we know what we lost before listing began.

Regards

Ken Hume

Here's another collection of interesting reports from Norway with great images. Their are summaries in English.

http://www.niku.no/archive/niku/publikasjoner/NIKU%20temahefte/30_grindbygg1.pdf

Jim

Hi Jim,

This is an excellent link and provides a good insight into Western Scandinavian building tradition plus also provides selected coverage of the Orkneys, Shetlands and Faroe Islands. It mentions "trestle" type frames which is a new timber framing terminology or at least one not in general use by the English. This technique might well be even older than the Norman techniques that were adopted and developed in England following the Norman invasion in 1066 and so this research might possibly reflect a precedant to same. There is a well known timber building in the Faroes that has been in domestic occupation now for over one thousand years.

Regards

Ken Hume