Vernacular Architecture: Early Timber Framed Buildings & Timber Frame Homes

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Early Timber Framed House

The golden age of the vernacular architecture of timber framed buildings was a few hundreds of years ago, around the 16th and 17th centuries. However it is known that the use of wood as a building material was well before the Romans and postdates the discovery and use of reinforced concrete by French gardeners who started making flower pots and containers using wire set in cement in 1849.

In the earlier days of timber homes and vernacular architecture , erecting the carcass of timber framed buildings by the local builders required the precision of a string instrument maker, combined with the bullish strength of an ox, in order to lift up and build those weighty timbers and set them into place over a strong plinth.

The upper floors of timber framed buildings cantilevered (jettied) out to form high storeys with greater floor areas than the ground floor. All the window and door openings were slotted into the timber framework and the remaining gaps were filled with split oak laths (thin strips of hardwood), with hazel or willow wood woven between them. When this task was completed, the surfaces were daubed with clay (or mud ) and then lime washed .

Timber Frame Construction & Vernacular Architecture

The great thing about vernacular architecture and traditional homes is its process of building homes and other simple buildings using local builders, with local structural designs, using materials found locally. This allowed each area or region to develop its own unique and distinctive timber frame home styles.

For example, with localised designs, the Yeoman's timber framed home in Kent, Sussex and Surrey has a central room or hall which opens to the roof and it has a wing at either sides of the building cantilevered while still keeping within the basic rectangular floor plan. This was in contrast to the Eastern regions where the buildings' wings were designed to project one room beyond the front elevation.

And with timber surface finishes, in Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, bulls blood were added to lime wash to produce the ubiquitous Suffolk pink and covered with coats of plaster with elaborate decorative designs applied on them. And in the west regions, Worcestershire, Cheshire and Hertfordshire, the timber work was left exposed, but from the late 18th century, timber was given the distinctive magpie look, with black tarred timbers and brightly whitewashed panels .

Early Timber Framed Buildings And Aesthetics

In early timber framed building works, upright posts (studs) were very closely spaced because of the seemingly abundance of wood. As the prices of timber began to rise, especially oak, the upright posts were spaced a bit farther apart from each others in order to reduce the amount of timber studs required and save money .

But where the home-owner's budget is high enough to take the strain, in other words, a wealthy client with a fat purse, the builders will install extra timbers running across the building façade in kissing criss cross patterns and excessive diagonals. They may then employ the services of master carvers to add forms such as beatific saints and cherubic angels in such areas as the projecting newels (posts) of the staircase.

Modern Timber Framed Building

Today's Timber Frame Homes

Timber frame building designs was revived as tasteful designs in the '70's, and now, there is an exciting rebirth of the traditional skills of timber frame construction. According to wikipedia, practitioners like Steve Chappell, Jack Sobon, and Tedd Benson, studied old plans and techniques of vernacular architecture, and revived this long neglected building technique.

Timber frame building construction was once a family carpentry skill passed down from generation to generation. It has now been modernised with the technology and aid of modern industrial tools and machines. Combining the use of these machines and tools with mass production techniques has helped its popularity and upward growth, making for more affordable designs and materials, and shorter construction periods.

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Today, there is no shortage of beautiful examples of timber framed buildings still being designed and constructed. And the tradition of building timber frame homes and commercial buildings continues, with several construction companies building the old traditional styles.

But unfortunately, there is a tendency to bring in regional designs into any area, rather than research, design and recreate the traditionally local styles.

Now we will discover Walden homes appearing In Warwickshire, and black and white Herefordshire houses crop up in Hertfordshire. The result is a gradual erosion of the regional differences which was the hallmark of vernacular architecture.

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