Hi Don,

Re Jack's observations about exact 18" separations on scoring marks this rang a bell inside me. A few years back when I was doing recording work in the Bishop's Camera roof at Farnham Castle I noted that the 6" wide x 5" deep rafters were set exactly on 18" centres. This means that there is a gap of only 12" between each rafter. I frequently have arguments with aspiring old building recorders about using feet and inches rather than metres and centimeters to measure and record old buildings. English Heritage insists on using metres but 2.4384 metres just doesn't mean as much to me as 8ft, nor can one derive much sense from it. But I digress, the rafters in the Camera roof were beautifully smooth and so I examined the surface finish in the somewhat dim light to try and establish whether this was a planed, hewn, adzed or sawn finish and I never did manage to arrive at a conclusion. Now the rafters on this roof have been dendro dated to about 1380 ( http://www.dbrg.org.uk/DENDRO/dendrolist4FC.html ) and I am now wondering if what I was seeing was a tee axe finish. We know for sure that this axe was around in 1066 and from other reports its use was widespread over Europe so as Don asks above when did its use expire and why ?

Anyone wanting to make a virtual tour of this roof can drop me an email and I will send them a naviagable *.mov file that permits full 360 degree (spherical) rotation and zoom in and out. I will also try and figure out how this can be posted on this forum for download (about 2.5mb).

Joel, how do I do this ?

Regards

Ken Hume