Hi Tim & Mike,
I dug out an old photo of Cecil Hewett that I took of him in the Barley barn at Cressing Temple, Essex back in 1993.
The Master at Work - 1993 You will see that an aisle post has split down its length due to a tying joint trying to resist the out thrust of the common rafters.
The folder that Cecil is holding contains the orginal illustrations included in English Historic Carpentry and a few moments after taking the photo he dropped the folder and the drawings blew away in this rather drafty barn. A mad scamble ensued by all present to help recover same. When examining Cecil's books and drawings have you seen any illustrations that feature failures ?
Cecil worked mainly in Essex or in the wider area of East Anglia and London and thus most of his illustrations tend to reflect this region. Many of the buildings that he illustrated could not really be described as run of the mill buildings and therefore it would be easy to forgive a person remote from this insight to believe that what one sees in this book is widespread in practice, for example, Cecil does not include any cruck frames so does that mean that these do not exist ?
Regards
Ken Hume