Hi Tim,

Some of your surmises might not be so far from the mark ! This building was recently hit by a truck reversing into an old coaching door opening on the same side of the building as the broken English tieing joint however this happened a few years after the above picture was taken. The square holes seen in the metal strap are original holes used to secure the tyre to the wooden cart rim.

Maybe my choice of the word "rotation" is not the best since as Jay mentions above transverse racking of the building can in effect cause rotation of the main post about its base. It's probably worth re-examining the drawing where one can see that the main post concerned is a full height storey post of some 16 foot length with this divided into 6 foot on the ground floor and 10 foot on the upper floor. The posts at the jetty are discontinuous being jointed above and below the mid rail. This will not provide the same degree of stiffness as a continuous post. The 2 bay upper room was completely open to the roof and so this room lacked intermediate stiffening other than the cross braces between the tie beam and main posts. I have mentioned a couple of times on this forum of my dislike for empty frames and especially those that comprise just main posts, cross braces, tie beam and pricipal rafters.



The picture above shows the common rafters in the jetty bay immediately in front of the failed tieing joint. Of particular note is the dragon tie between the wall plate and front tie beam. This is a very archaic feature generally found only in timber-frames built within a 1200 - 1300 date range.

Regards

Ken Hume