There is another variation of the above method of supporting the ridge-pole, and that is shown in [Fig. 3]. Instead of selecting a bent tree, one was secured which was upright for a certain height, and then which bent to one side with a branch. By placing two of these trees together, a perfect end was formed for the house. However, this was not a very good type, since it meant the selecting of very unusual-shaped trees.
ENGLISH POST & TRUSS CONSTRUCTION
For this reason the system of post-and-truss construction, which is shown in [Fig. 4], was the natural outcome of the above. Diagonal bracing at the corners evidently was found to be useful in resisting high wind-storms, and it was usually employed.
There apparently remained a distrust of masonry walls among the carpenters, for they continued to support the roofs entirely upon heavy timber framing, and records show that the exterior walls were built up after the roof-framing had been completed. There are evidences that the early types of walls, after the primitive woven brushwood walls proved insecure, were made like a barricade of trees; that is, they were merely a continuous line of vertically placed tree-trunks. This, of course, was a ruinously expensive type of wall when timber became scarce, and it is no wonder that it grew to a system of construction like that shown in [Fig. 5]. Even this required a good deal of wood, so that the filling of the space between the timbers rather logically became masonry or plaster on lath. However, the method of building shown in [Fig. 5] has all of the elements of the system of construction used in framing modern exterior walls. The most important difference is in the size of the timbers used.
| TYPE OF ANCIENT WOODEN WALL | ENGLISH HALF TIMBER CONSTRUCTION |
The half-timber construction of the Middle Ages was only the artistic treatment of this crude system of building. In [drawing number 6] is a very simple half-timber house which shows practically no attempt at all to decorate. The construction is perfectly evident, and there are no curves and carving used to ornament the building, as can be seen on some of the more elaborate houses of the cities. This simple building system was the traditional background of the English carpenter, and it is not at all extraordinary that he brought his methods of building over to this country.