Black and white timber frame houses - Intel by Foolonthehill

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Foolonthehill

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November, 2008

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Black and white timber frame houses Black and white houses, simple, ecological and robust houses which have withstood the test of time throughout the British Isles since the fourteenth century, are lived in to this day, and are still being built by carpenters, timber-frame builders and self builders today. 14th century vernacular timber-frame building Some villages and even towns in some UK counties have predominantly black and white or, more accurately, timber-framed, houses with wattle and daub walls and cruck frames. Cruck frames were a very common technique in building houses. A cruck-frame consists of a pair of curved timbers (the cruck blades), which were often cut from one tree. A collar (and sometimes a tie-beam) joins the blades together. An example of a cruck frame can be seen in this house in Ledbury, Herefordshire. Originally, black and white buildings weren't black and white, but the natural colour of the oak beams and the colour of the soil in the locality, mixed with lime and ox blood - some can still be seen in this original condition today. They are all individual timber-framed buildings, built by carpenters who had spent long apprenticeships learning their craft, no two houses are alike but were crafted for their owners from trees growing close by. Larger buildings such as inns and barns were built by many hands in co-operation and to the design of an architect of grand buildings. It is a myth that they were built from recycled ships' timbers as the timber would have been too hard to work with hand tools. A few close to the coast may have been so constructed, or had ship's timbers incorporated into them, but the effort to transport heavy timber long distances would have prevented this inland. They were commonly constructed from green timbers cut from freshly felled trees chosen for the job close by. Most counties in the UK have black and white buildings, with Herefordshire and Shropshire among those with the most. There is even a 'Black and White Trail' which winds round the area of the Welsh Marches through sleepy black and white villages where you could be in another century. Other countries both in Europe and beyond also have timber frame buildings surviving to this day, and timber frame building continues with many modern house designer and builders using this method of construction.