ABPL90085 CULTURE OF BUILDING

traditional timber framing

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 CARPENTRY AND
THE MORTICE & TENON
 grooved stone axe
head from Vevey,
France

Amerindian axe

Jean-François Robert, Rêver

l’Outil: gestes essentiels – outils
de toujours (Éditions Cabédita, La
Lêchére [Savoie] 1995), p 91
 stone axe in a wooden
haft, earlier Neolithic,
about 3700-3100 BC,
Ehenside Tarn,
Cumbria, England.
British Museum PE POA
109.6, 190.7
Miles Lewis
Egyptian adze, 18th Dynasty, reign
of Hatshepsut, c 1673-58 BC
British Museum EA 26279

J H Taylor [ed], Journey through the Afterlife:

Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead (British
Museum Press, London 2010), p 99
Egyptian carpenter’s tools
Lewis, Architectura, p 53
 Egyptian maul & adze
carpenter on a scaffold,
using an adze
Rose-Marie & Rainer Hagen, Egypt:
People, Gods, Paroahs (Taschen, Koln &
London 1999), p 82, 83
Egypt: model carpenter's shop, including a carpenter cutting a tenon joint in a plank
Egyptian Museum, Cairo, JE 46722
Miles Lewis
detail of the Egyptian carpenter’s shop.
Lewis, Architectura, p 132
fresco of an
Egyptian
carpenter
using a saw

Hagen, Egypt, p
72
 mortice and tenon joint
Jean-Louis Valentin, La Charpente: Mode d’Emploi (Eyrolles, Paris 2008), p 22
Trudy West, The Timber-Frame House in England (Newton Abbot [Devonshire] no date), p 14
Egyptian chest, British Museum
Miles Lewis
mortised, tenoned and pegged joint of the Egyptian chest
Miles Lewis
EARTHFAST v GROUND SILL
CONSTRUCTION
House of Romulus, Rome: reconstruction drawing
from Frank Sear
posts or studs, with and without a ground sill
West, The Timber-Frame House, p 21
(a) what is the main advantage of earthfast construction?

(b) what is the main advantage of the ground sill?

Glastonbury, c 200 BC: overlapping ends of two planks with square mortices for wattles,
and a larger one presumably for a corner post

John Bradford, 'Building in Wattle, Wood, and Turf', in Charles Singer et al [eds], A History of
Technology, vol I, From Early Times to Fall of Ancient Empires (Oxford 1954), p 320
 interpretation of a structure
from Valkenburg, Netherlands,
of the Roman period
framing and wattling in
trenches
E M Jope [ed], Studies in Building
History (London 1961), p 21
decay

DECAY

interpretation of a structure from Valkenburg, Netherlands,

of the Roman period
framing and wattling in trenches
E M Jope [ed], Studies in Building History (London 1961), p 21
excavation of a structure at Valkenburg, Netherlands, of the Roman
period, indicating framing and wattling on sole plates
Jope, Studies in Building History, p 21
 reconstruction
of a structure at
Valkenburg,
with framing
and wattling on
sole plates

Jope, Studies in
Building History, p
21
carpenters using axes to square a tree trunk
the story of Noah, Chartres Cathedral.
Éditions Houvet
 traditional French axes
Jean-Louis Valentin, La Charpente: Mode d’Emploi (Eyrolles, Paris 2008), p 24
SPLITTING
splitting a log with an axe, Gilbert Islands
John Hockings, Traditional Architecture in the Gilbert Islands
(St Lucia [Queensland] 1989), p 171
splitting timber with a broadaxe, Queensland
Miles Lewis
splitting timber with a froe, Queensland
Miles Lewis
splitting timber with a maul and wedges, USA
Eric Sloane, A Reverence for Wood (New York 1975), p 62
sledgehammer
and mallet

Jean-Louis Valentin, La
Charpente: Mode
d’Emploi (Eyrolles,
Paris 2008), p 24
splitting slabs on the Tweed River
Archer, Building a Nation, p 67
ADZES, AUGERS
MORTISING AXES
Egyptian adze, c 1400-
1200 BC
Egyptian Museum, Cairo, S1526

Miles Lewis
adzed timber
beam at the
Hyde Park
Barracks,
Sydney

Miles Lewis
auger and post axe, USA
Sloane, Reverence for Wood, p 63
 fencepost
with augered
mortice

Miles Lewis
auger, broad axe and mortising axe, Queensland
Miles Lewis
Douglas fir tree
cut by cross-cut
saw, USA

courtesy Richard Byrne

ways of breaking down a log using a saw
Adam, Roman Building, p 97
 detail of a saw
in a model of an
Egyptian
carpentry
workshop

Egyptian saw in
the British
Museum
Lewis, Architectura, p 32
Smith , Dictionary of
Greek and Roman
Antiquities, p 1029
saw from Ras Shamra, Syria, 2nd millennium
BC or earlier. Louvre AO 14761
Miles Lewis
 Roman carpentry
tools
relief from a small altar:
frame saw, two handed
crosscut saw, and other
tools and objects
belonging to the
sacrificator: Capitol
Museum, Rome
Roman hand saw, as
published by Gruter

Adam, Roman Building, p 92;

Smith, Dictionary of Greek and
Roman Antiquities, p 1029
'In the Totomi Mountains', Japan, by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)
National Gallery of Victoria, NGV60160D
 Gallo-
Roman pit
sawing,
relief from
the Pont-
du-Gard
Museum,
Nîmes,
France

Chris How
 pit sawing
diagram by E R K
Harding

State Library of
Victoria
sawpit, New South Wales, probably 1870s
Holtermann collection
pit sawing,
Queensland

Miles Lewis
 pit sawing in
Wiltshire, using a
frame saw

Creasey, Victorian and

Edwardian Country Life, pl
95
 late Roman
frame saw
and blade
from a painting at
Herculaneum, and
a monument
published by
Gruter

Smith , Dictionary of
Greek and Roman
Antiquities, p 1029
demons sawing a tree with a frame saw,
fourteenth century, Central Asia
Topkapi Saraya Muzesi, Istanbul, H.21q53,fol
two man frame saw [oga] for rip sawing, Japan,
c 1500, by Sanjuniban Shokudin Uta Awase
141a Suntory Museum of Art;
tourniquet frame saws in use at Tsingtau, China, c 1900
from a German postcard
C18th century timber yard with frame saw
Diderot, Encyclopédie, 'Menuiserie'
 traditional French saws
Jean-Louis Valentin, La Charpente: Mode d’Emploi (Eyrolles, Paris 2008), p 24
cutting veneer with a frame saw, France
André Roubo, L'Art du Menusier, 1769
 water-powered
sawmill, early
C13th, illustrated
by Villard de
Honnecourt

Robert Mark [ed],

Architectural Technology up
to the Scientific Revolution
(Cambridge [Massachusetts]
1993), p 3
saw worked by pole and pedal, c 1770
inv 13571/261[B], Musée des Arts et Metiers, Paris
band saw, Hjerl
Hede, Denmark

Chris How
 sawmill in the USA, 1788
Thomas Anburey, Travels through the Interior Parts of America (London 1789)
CARPENTER’S
TOOLS
 a shrine building site, Japan, 1309
Kasuga Gongen Genki-E, reproduced in Coaldrake, Way of the Carpenter, pl 2
detail of a shrine building
site, Japan, 1309
detail of a shrine building
site, Japan, 1309
 the bow drill
in Egypt, and in use
in Roman times
Adam, Roman Building, p 99
 wood turning, drilling
with a bow, and
carpenter's tools,
Kashmir, India, 1850

George Michell [ed],

Architecture of the Islamic
World: its History and Social
Meaning (New York 1978), p
113
pump drill of a
jeweller or
clockmaker,
France

Jean-François
Robert, Rêver l’Outil:
gestes essentiels –
outils de toujours
(Éditions Cabédita,
La Lêchére [Savoie]
1995), p 120
carpentry gnomes, Cologne Cathedral, Germany
photo by James Martin: <http://goeurope.about.com/od/koln/ss/cologne_pics_4.htm>
 house carpenter's tools (left) and joiner’s tools (right), England, c 1700
Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy Work (London 1678) House
Carpentry, pl 8; Joiner’s Work, pl 4
 lathe, England, c 1700
Moxon, Mechanick Exercises, Turner's Work, pl 1
carpenter's bag, c 1886, found under
the floor of Leicester House, 202-6
Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Miles Lewis
 contents of a
carpenter's bag, c
1886, found under
the floor of Leicester
House, 202-6
Flinders Lane,
Melbourne

Miles Lewis
Roman scarfs and splices
Adam, Roman Building, p 100
 Roman joints
Adam, Roman Building, p 101
CARPENTER'S MARKS
medieval carpenters' numerals
West, The Timber-Frame House, p 61
carpenter's marks on a building at the Bokrijk Museum , Belgium
Marc Laenen, 1990, no 31A ('29')
Buckwell Farm, near
Ashford, Kent,
England. mid-C15th:
numbering of arcade
post and brace

Malcolm Kirk, The Barn

(London 1994), p 125
German house at Paechtown, South Australia: detail of the corner
of the base plates, showing the numeral 'XI‘, with flecks
Robert Moore & Sheridan Bourke, Australian Cottages (Port Melbourne 1989), p 46
Eckverzierung
house, Groß
Düben,
Spreewald,
Germany,
1814: corner
detail

Lotar Balke, Bauen

und Wohnen in Heide
und Spreewald
(Domowina-Verlag,
Bautzen 1994), p 18
 the use of flecks on workman’s house, Horno Nr 79,
Zimmermannszeichen, Spreewald, Germany
Lotar Balke, Bauen und Wohnen in Heide und Spreewald (Domowina-Verlag, Bautzen 1994), p 241
 carpenters' numerals and marks
numerals; numerals with flecks; numerals with strokes
R J Brown, Timber-Framed Buildings of England (London 1986), p 39
 joint in a Pennsylvania Dutch barn, showing symbols for assembling bent no 3
Eric Arthur & Dudley Whitney, The Barn: a Vanishing Landmark in North America (New York 1978 [1972]), p 177
CRUCK CONSTRUCTION
the earthfast cruck
the cruck truss
the cruck rafter
suggested development of the cruck frame
West, The Timber-Frame House, p 22
cruck frame of early hut & early timber frame cottage with crucks
Matthew's Cyclopaedia of the Home, I, p 2
C14th cruck cottage with half loft and a louvre over the hearth
MUAS 15,860
 ‘cruck-truss' construction
Ronald Brunskill, Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture (London 1970), p 53
 'Cruck Cottage',
Didbrook, Stanway,
Gloucestershire, no
date

Tony Evans & C L Green,

English Cottages (London
1982), p 47
cruck barn, Leigh Court, Worcestershire, C14th. interior view
Kirk, The Barn, p 108
 supposed
evolution of
cruck
construction
into frame
construction:
a typology or
Brittany

G I Meirion-Jones, The
Vernacular Architecture
of Brittany (Edinburgh
1982), p 83
 the forested areas of Northern Europe
Vaclac Mencl, Lidova Architektura v Ceskoslovensku (Prague 1980), p 562
 palisade
construction,
Denmark

Gorm Benzon, Gammelt

Danske Bindingsværk
(Copenhagen 1984), p 19
 early stave building, Hemse, Gotland, Sweden
J H Acland, Medieval Structure: the Gothic Vault (Toronto 1972), p 14; MUAS 5,284
West Stow, reconstructed C7th Anglo-Saxon Village, East Anglia
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2471/weststow.html
reconstructed C7th Saxon palisade houses, West Stow
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/2471/weststow.html
St Andrew's Church, Greenstead, Essex, before 1013
Builder, 1849, p 115
St Andrew's Church, Greenstead, Essex, undated, but after the C7th and before 1013
MUAS 23,233
St Andrew's, Greenstead,
reconstruction of carcase
Hewett, English Historic
Carpentry, p 13
 St Andrew's,
Greenstead,
reconstructed
detail of the top
plate

Hewett, English Historic

Carpentry, p 13
timber building, Poland, c 700 BC, of heavy grooved posts and tenoned logs

Acland, The Gothic Vault, p 12

 Morton Herman's reconstruction of the construction of a hut in Sydney in 1789,
based upon an illustration in David Collins, Account of the English Colony in New South Wales
\
Morton Herman, The Early Australian Architects and their Work (South Sydney 1954), p 5
‘Kulkyne’, west arm
Miles Lewis
HORIZONTAL SLAB
 slab building at Ørey, Denmark, 1880s [two sides original]
Gorm Benzon, Bindingsværk i Sønderjylland og Slesvig (no place [?Copenhagen] 1985), p 22
slab building in Haderslev Museum, Denmark
Benzon, Gammelt Danske Bindingsværk, p 23
horizontal slab buildings at Den Gamle By &Hjerl Hede, Denmark
Chris How
house with a pièce sur pièce or bois en coulisse wall
at Ste Geneviève, Québec, photo 1924
APT Bulletin, VIII, 1 (1976), p 66
slab blacksmith's shop, not located
unsourced
THE BRACED
FRAME
an unbraced frame
the failure of an unbraced frame
triangulation (a)
the need for triangulation (b)
the triangulated frame
a house in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh
Dilshad Ara
construction of a house in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh
Dilshad Ara
alternative bracing strategies
ROOFING & TRUSSES
reconstruction of an Etruscan temple as described by Vitruvius
Axel Boëthius & J B Ward-Perkins, Etruscan and Roman Architecture (Harmondsworth
[Middlesex]1970), pl 12
 Ekklesiasterion or Bouleterion, Priene, c 200 B
view & plan
Miles Lewis; Robertson, Greek and Roman Architecture, p 177
Ekklesiasterion, Priene: reconstruction view
Scranton, Greek Architecture, fig 96
 House of the Vetii,
Pompeii, atrium, and
detail of impluvium

unsouced commerial slide

Miles Lewis
Column of Trajan, Rome, AD 113: detail showing a wood-framed theatre
Talbot Hamlin, Forms and Functions of Twentieth-Century Architecture, II, The Principles of
Composition (New York 1952), p 390
Roman military wooden bridge, reconstructed by Choisy on the basis of
one shown on the Column of Trajan

Hamlin, Forms and Functions, II, p 286

 S Paolo fuori le Mura, Rome, the basilica of 386,
destroyed 1823: cross-section
Jean-Baptiste Rondelet, Traité Théorique et Pratique de l'Art de Bâtir (published
by the author, 6 vols, Paris 1812-17 [1812, 1814, 1814, nd, 1817, nd]), III, pl lxxvi
 evidence in
stone of king
post trusses
in Syria
pediment of
porch, Brad
Convent
porch on the
south side of
Bātûtā
Chapel
H C Butler [ed E B
Smith], Early
Churches in Syria
Fourth to Seventh
Centuries
(Amsterdam 1969
[1929]), pp 19, 201
 Sant' Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, c 532-549
sectional perspective showing the queen post truss roof
Dehio-Bezold , Die Kirchliche Baukunst des Abendlandes
THE SCANDINAVIAN TRADITION
from palisades to staves
from ship building to knee braces
 Stave Church at Gol, Norway, C12th: section
Stave church at Borgund, C13th: view.
Dan Lindholm, Stave Churches of Norway (London 1969 [Stuttgart 1968]), p 17; MUAS 9897
Viking longhouse, Trelleborg, near Søro,
Denmark, c 960, reconstruction
Lewis, Architectura, p 40
simplified illustrations of the construction of a stave church and a Viking ship
Lindholm, Stave Churches, p 18
roof of the stave church at Heddal, Norway, beginning of C13th;
generic stave church roof
Lindholm, Stave Churches, pl 70, p 18
 Stave church at Hopperstadt, Sogn, c 1150: interior
Church at Blackmore, Essex, no date, showing oak timbers of the tower
Gustav Künstler, Romanesque Art in Europe (London 1969) pl 70; Monumentum, III, 1969, p 33
knee braces, Chatham Dockyard,
England, early C19th
Chris How
hay barn at 'Tocal', Paterson, New South Wales, by Edmund Blacket, c 1850
Miles Lewis
Tocal barn,
interior

Miles Lewis
Tocal barn: knee brace
Miles Lewis
THE GERMANIC TRADITION
the anchor beam
elaborate pegged joints
the angle brace
construction in bents
 Stening-Böving farm,
Westphalia, Germany 1743
(now at the open air
museum, Detmold):
anchor beam with double
tenon

Kirk, The Barn, p 119

anchor beam, Bokrijk
Museum, Belgium

Marc Laenen, no 24
 Højremshus, Denmark
Benzon, Gammelt Danske Bindingsværk, p 52
Bokrijk Museum, anchor beam, arch brace & consoles supporting the eaves
Marc Laenen, no 17
Dutch-built barn formerly at Mickel Hollow, near Cobleskill, Scoharie Co, NY
Kirk, The Barn, p 76
'Larger Wemp' barn, New York State [Dutch type]
Arthur & Whitney, The Barn, p 47
Bradt barn, near Fonda, NY: middle bent
Kirk, The Barn, p 76
 erecting a timber
frame of anchor beam
construction
Kirk, The Barn, p 118
'Larger Wemp' barn, New York State, interior detail
Arthur & Whitney, The Barn, p 47
assembly of an
anchor beam
frame.
Kirk, The Barn, p 118
'Ways of making a wooden pin stay put,' USA
Eric Sloane, A Reverence for Wood (New York 1975), p 6
main types of timber jointing in Dutch aisled buildings
E L van Olst, 'Building Traditions in the Netherlands', in Michael Petzet & John
Ziesemer [eds], Vernacular Architecture (München 2002), p 66
raising holes used as an aid in the construction of a 'new world Dutch barn’
Fitchen, The New World Dutch Barn, p 132
Schubert House,
Springhead Road,
Springhead,
South Australia
(?c 1860):
diagram of timber
framing

Gordon Young et al,

Lobethal 'Valley of
Praise' (Adelaide
1983), p 208
 Schubert
House,
axonometric

Young, Lobethal. p 209

THE FRANCO-BRITISH
TRADITION
angle braces
the knob and neck joint [France only]
barn of the Abbey Grange, Parçay Meslay, early C13th
Kirk, The Barn, p 45
the barn at Parçay Meslay
Kirk, The Barn, p 45
aisled hall at Sole Street, Crundale, Kent, possibly C15th
Eric Mercer, English Vernacular Houses (London 1975) p 10
 barn at
Harmondsworth,
Middlesex,
1426-7

Kirk, The Barn, pl 19

barn at Frindsbury, Kent, C14th: splayed scarf with a key in the arcade plate
Kirk, The Barn, pl 22
 framing in Normandy
Lescroart, Manor Houses in Normandy, p 53
 Manor of Le Lieu Rocher, Normandy, detail of an outbuilding
Yves Lescroart, Manor Houses in Normandy (Paris 1997 [1995]), p 52
French medieval carpentry detail by Viollet-le-Duc; base of a principal vertical
member in a French Gothic Cathedral Roof, after Viollet-le-Duc
Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire (Paris), III, p 280, sv Cloche John Fitchen, Building
Construction before Mechanization (Cambridge [Massachusetts] 1986), p 145
the knob and
neck joint

Fitchen, Building
Construction before
Mechanization, p
144
Bokrijk Museum, Belgium: mortice & tenon joints in sill beam
Marc Laenen no 21
 Bokrijk, corner
construction with
angle braces

Marc Laenen, no 20.

Bokrijk, principal rafter
tie beam stiffened by
an arch brace

Marc Laenen no 12
 Bokrijk, lap
joints

plain

spiked to a post

Marc Laenen, nos 13, 18

THE BOX FRAME
house at Ezinge (Groningen), Netherlands, C4th-C3rd BC:
reconstruction by Price & Schwarz
Lorna Price, The Plan of St Gall in Brief (Berkely [California] 1982), p 82
Saxon Hall, conjectural reconstruction, say C10th
MUAS 15,858
 Sulehaus, Denmark
Benzon, Gammelt Danske Bindingsværk, p 199
 half timber
house frame
with hafter roof,
Denmark

Benzon, Gammelt
Danske Bindingsværk, p
197
 building frame,
(purported to be
Noah building the
ark), from the
Bedford Hours,
early C15th

Lewis, Architectura, p 134

 box frame construction
Brunskill, Vernacular Architecture, p 53
English box frame house
MUAS 10,207
construction of a jettied or oversailing upper floor
MUAS 18,857
 double-jettied
house, Forcheim,
Germany

Chris How
 English timber joints
left: joints at Dove Hill houses, Suffolk, no date
right: tie beam lap dovetail joints
C F Innocent, The Development of English Building Construction (Cambridge 1916), p 77
Brown, Timber-Framed Buildings, p 37
HALF TIMBERING
 wall materials and traditional construction in Europe
Henri Raulin Maison Paysannes d’Europe: ancrage dans l’histoire et manières
d’habiter (Ibis Press, Paris 2009), p 28
pans-de-bois [timber frame] types in northern France
Henri Raulin Maison Paysannes d’Europe: ancrage dans l’histoire et manières
d’habiter (Ibis Press, Paris 2009), p 28
 half-timbered
house
Hildersham,
Cambridgeshire

MUAS 8,381
C16th house, Winchester
MUAS 637
Speke Hall, Lancashire
MUAS 10,949
compound farmstead from Klein-Hoeselt, Limburg, C16th-18th, Bokrijk Museum
Marc Laenen no 94
 granary (?)
Bokrijk
Museum

Marc Laenen no 71
 French half timbered pigeon houses in the Midi-Pyrénées region &
border of the Tarn, Garonne & Lot departments

Bertrand de Vivies, Pigeon-Houses of the Midi Pyrenees Region (Albi 1994), pp [11], 25