By the Pev. A. C. Smith. 289 



to our forefathers as it is unnatural to us : but perhaps more than 

 all (in the better examples at least) to the desire of obtaining many- 

 beautiful features which were peculiar to the timber edifices^ and 

 which could be produced by this material alone : " projecting stories, 

 windows with delicate tracery, elegant oriels, carved gable boards, 

 pendants, and so forth. These, together with a profusion of en- 

 richment on their chequered walls, impart to these buildings a charm 

 which cannot be surpassed by any other style/^^ 



" These timber buildings of England were generally constructed 

 of oak, possessing extreme durability ; the superiority of which over 

 that procured at present is said to arise from the trees having been 

 felled in winter, and not in spring, as at present, for the sake of the 

 bark." ^ There was no stint of timber employed : massive beams 

 were used in every part of the construction : indeed it has repeatedly 

 been urged that there has been an unnecessary consumption of wood 

 in these buildings j but this objection does not appear to be well 

 substantiated; for any excess of strength in the first instance has 

 been more than amply repaid by the additional number of years they 

 have lasted : their existence for three or four centuries in a sound state 

 being one of the best proofs of the skill displayed in their construc- 

 tion. The walls were generally formed of timbers disposed in 

 various patterns, though sometimes simple squares, and were filled 

 in with plaster set in stout oak laths : this plaster was a mud -clay 

 well mixed with straw, which was afterwards whitewashed,^ and was 

 a material resembling the Devonshire coh of the present time. The 

 principal timbers of the roof were generally built up in squares in 

 the same manner as the walls, and were covered with stone tiles. 



1 " Ancient timber edifices of England," by John Clayton, Architect, 1846. 



^Clayton's '* Ancient timber edifices of England." 



' In London, the citizens were compelled to whitewash even the thatch of 

 their houses, as a precaution against fire, and so the " Londoners objected to 

 sea-borne coal for fuel, that the smoke from it blackened the white walls of 

 their buildings. The appearance of the city presented the aspect of a mass of low 

 whitewashed tenements." — Hudson Turner's Domestic Architecture of England 

 from the Conquest to the end of the thirteenth centuiy, vol. ii., p. 26, and 

 yoL L, p. 115. 



