Hi Will,

I did read and examine your original post but found myself to be more than a little stumped for a name or experience of seeing another like that which can be seen at the Gilpen House.

At first sight this practice doesn't make a lot of sense but on further reflection it might well be good practice.

If we consider alternatives then the obvious one might be a continuous tie beam stretching from side to side. This would result in a plane of weakness at the integration line between the stone gable and the lower gable wall. Usually gables are less thick than the lower gable wall because they are not holding anything up and so there would be a real prospect of the gable simply falling out of place. The alternative might be to simply bury the wall plate in the end wall but because this would be so close to the surface of the masonary then there would be very little deadweight to develop sufficient holding power to resist outward thrust.

The picture would appear to illustrate a compromise between these 2 options such that the gable masonary remains reasonably stable and the wall plate is secured.

A better solution might be to run a tie beam or tie rod along the inside face of the gable but not burying this in the wall. This would leave a short cantilevered section of wall plate which would be carrying very little roof load. Have you been able to inspect inside to see if a tie beam / rod is in place ?

Making a join between masonary and timber is not easy. On my recent trip to Barbados I discovered that the timber windmill cap was secured to the masonary of the stone tower by a process of building a ring of 6 foot long vertical timbers into the 3 foot thick mill wall top and then securing the cap ring to same. Clearly this solution works but it is unable to be adequately inspected and as such must pose a continual worry to the owner / operators. The only reason I know this is because I saw a derelict mill wall with these timbers now exposed. I will try to dig out and post a photo of this feature.

I am meeting with some knoweldgeable building types in Oxford tonight and will raise this issue to see if others who live in the north west of that county have any experience of this technique. That part of Oxfordshire is built using predominately Cotswold stone walls with timber floor and roof so I might get a result.

Regards

Ken Hume