Hi Tim,

There is an issue with the shinkage of all wood species however some are worse than others. Unfortunately, I do not have Jack's yellow book - to what does this book pertain ?

What quantified evidence do you have to justify your proposition that the cog is more fequently employed than the dovetail as a tie beam end joint ?

Stud and mud sounds a bit like wattle & daub. Wattle is a woven structural membrane made up from vertical (oak) staves with interlaced horizontal withies (split hazel or willow) then covered with daub which will be made up from clay, animal muck, sand and maybe some chalk.

Richard,

There is a thatch insurance company that specialises in both providing insurance and in arranging re thatching. Thatch needs to be re ridged (the patterned bit at the top) every 12 - 15 years and recoated every 25 - 40 years as the top surface breaks down. The layers of thatch can and do build up over the centuries till they are 5 - 6 feet thick. North and east facing thatch tends to be damper and hence grows more moss whereas south and west facing thatch will erode more due to rain and UV sun action. Though most thatch homeowners are fastideous about buying insurance cover the vast majority fail to recognise that they need a decent set of drawings to rebuild. In the first picture showing the box frame you will see a new building to the right which was built to replace an older medieval thatched house that burned to the ground a few years back. Any comments about this building ?

All of the buildings illustrated above are from the same village in which there are a total of about 60 "listed" buildings. This listing is accorded by English Heritage a government body with prescriptive powers but the day to day administration of this power is excercised by the various local authorities equivalent to a town selectmen council or board. The building listings are graded as II - II* and I. Grade I would require the involvement of English Heritage for change approvals and these buildings represent only about 5% of the total listed building stock with II* (two star) being about a further 10%. Most of the buildings that I have shown are Grade II and thus will require only local authority approvals to alter.

Owners are allowed to make repairs and maintain their properties without needing formal approvals but in practice there is such a overlap area between repair and alteration that most folks would involve the local conservation officer in the decision making process. That said not all conservation officers are created equal with this being a fairly modestly paid job appearing to attract a lot of young women most of whom have no real building experience and thus they tend to rely heavily on locally developed planning and conservation policy documents to shape and frame their advice and approvals. I am hopeful that this situation might now be changing with some youngsters now taking part in Masters Building Conservation courses and local recording groups where they can gain exposure to more knowledgeable persons however I hold the line that really these officers should really be drawn from the building trades where real life building experience can be brought to bare to assist and benefit both the buildings and owner.

Cecil Hewett was a conservation officer and was also a very practical person - good with his hands and he and his work stands as a good role model for youngsters to aspire to achieve, following in his footsteps and developing further the vernacular knowledge needed to deal with our listed buildings in an individual, thoughtful, caring and considerate kind of way rather than following a prescriptive mantra. Here endeth my rant about conservation oficers !

The pictures were taken by my son James using a Canon SLR type digital camera. The images were then shrunk to about 680 x 4?? using Adobe Photoshop. I have then posted these images onto Windows Live photo albums (for free) where all "hotmail" or Windows Live users have recently been given 25Gb worth of storage space.

I would very much like to see and hear more about North American buildings. Please keep in mind that many of these are older than the Great Fire of London and so some American built heritage is older than what can be seen today in central London.

Regards

Ken Hume