Tim On Site In Hertfordshire - May 2010

My love of carpentry started over twenty five years ago when I was a young man with a love for old oak frame buildings. Living in Herefordshire this led me to spend my early carpentry career repairing old oak frame cottages and farm houses in the Herefordshire country side. With my copy of F.W.B Charles Conservation of Timber Buildings in one hand and my saw in the other this work helped me to gain an in depth understanding of how traditional oak frame buildings were put together.

Clasped Purlins & Common Rafters

I spent over ten years repairing old oak frames before my friendship with Nick Price led me towards the starting of Oakwrights and the design and construction of new oak framed houses and buildings. Following the success of Oakwrights and new oak buildings for the last eleven years I have not really had anything to do with the repair of old oak frames.

When a set of drawings landed on our door step showing the repair of a small traditional oak framed cottage in Hertfordshire that had had the misfortune of the thatch catching fire and burning the house down I was not really interested until I realised that linked to the old cottage there was a proposed oak extension in an L shape that took the house up to about 3,000 square feet. Suddenly I was much more enthusiastic and thought that it would be good fun to dig deep into my memory and carry out the repair to the old cottage as well as the design and construction of the new oak frame.

Installing a clasped purlin truss

Roland, Tom, Gwil & Steve; A happy team, ready for work

Being a carpenter by trade I like to get out on site at least three or four times a year to join one of the frame erection teams on the best part of our job, actually putting up the oak frame. So with my regained enthusiasm for repair work I decided to join our team in Hertfordshire to erect the new oak frame and fit a new oak framed roof to the old cottage.

We arrived on site Tuesday May 4^th , the day after the bank holiday, with a long hard week ahead of us. We had left our yard in Herefordshire at 4.50am and we arrived on site just after 8am, the site being in the Hertfordshire countryside just outside what can only be described as a quintessential English village with its church, duck pond, village green and thatched cottages.

The main team got started on erecting the frame and I was tasked with working out how I would make sure that the new roof on the cottage would link into the roof on the oak extensions that we were building.

Steve & Gwil installing a clasped purlin

Back on the tools preparing the old wallplate to take the new

The combination of a complicated foot print with changing levels connecting into an existing building made this an interesting project to say the least. We worked closely with Bill Seale the site Forman to overcome all the little opportunities that came our way in a positive and pragmatic way. I worked out how I was going to set the wall plates up of the old cottage regarding level and angle to gain the best connection I could between the two roofs. This involved the packing, levelling and reducing of the existing wall plates ready to receive our new roof. I must be getting slow in my old age as it took me two days to get the wall plates absolutely ready for the new roof.

The result looked great and lifting the principal rafters up into the plain of the purlins helped to gain additional head height in a room in the roof situation. The clasped purlin trusses with the arched effect, where the two principal rafters meet at the ridge, and large sweeping wind braces I think makes the roof looks really elegant. By Friday evening at 6pm we had completed the entire main frame, adjusted the wall plates of the old cottage and even started to fit some of the oak rafters to the hip on the far end of the frame.

View from the old cottage gable, across to new wing with basement below

While feeling a little stiff and aching in places I didn’t think existed I really enjoyed myself when standing back and looking at a frame that will now stand for another three or four hundred years, giving many families a beautiful home to live in. Roland has actually made a time lapse film of us erecting the frame which will be on the web site soon so watch this space. My thanks must go to Neil Dower for giving Oakwrights the opportunities too breathe life back into this old house. I am looking forward to returning next springtime to see the house complete in all its glory with a new thatched roof.