While watching an episode of Grand Designs, in which a timber framed house was imported to the home counties from Germany, I was told that this was a new idea. Timber framing is modern, sustainable and is absolutely the latest thing.
Not really though, if you think back to the great fire of London. If those buildings hadn’t been timber framed, the fire would probably never have travelled further than the legendary bakery in Pudding Lane.
Yes, but the timber framed house filmed being erected for Grand Designs was delivered in prefabricated sections and slotted together almost like a flat pack wardrobe. That’s definitely new.
Ok, so it’s probably only a matter of time before IKEA begins to flog whole buildings, but maybe that is the point. These systems have been used in Scandinavia for decades. They have the timber, you know!
However, pre manufactured wooden housing isn’t a even a new idea in the UK. I don’t mean the post war pre-fabs which housed grateful Londoners displaced by the blitz. The history of this building type goes back further than that.
I spent large parts of my childhood in a timber framed and clad house in Bosham, West Sussex, which was built before the war for my grandparents. This was a Colt house and was definitely the latest thing in the 1930’s. Such houses were and continue to be popular with retired army officers, being quickly and efficiently erected and relatively inexpensive. Senior generals may retire with substantial handouts, but my grandfather had a modest lieutenant colonel’s pension from his service in India.
In Bosham my grandparents built their convenient, modern house at the back of Mr Brinkman’s cabbage field, the view was unassuming, like the house. My grandfather spent the next 40 years painting the walls and cultivating his garden. Photographs show a solid, unpretentious building with traditional tile hanging to the first floor and a clap-board clad ground floor. The hanging tiles were actually cedar shingles and never needed painting, the clapboard was a creamy white.
Inside there was no plaster, apart from dado height panelling on the stairs the interior had soft, fibreboard walls, wallpapered downstairs but not up. As a small child I can remember being able to push my thumbnail through the hard skin of pink paint into the wall beside my bed with a satisfying little click. Later I was allowed to cover the walls with pictures of lions and tigers, many held up with drawing pins. Every few years, when Granny declared it needed re-painting, a coat or two of emulsion would disguise the holes.
In a wind the house would creak and pop, but flexibility is no bad thing. When I drove past on a sentimental journey a couple of years ago, the old house was still there and looked just the same, apart from replacement of the previously metal windows. I remember those original windows with trepidation. Every evening my grandfather would go round the house and scrupulously lock every sash, regardless of the weather, nobody was going to get into his cedar clad fortress. Or get out, had the house gone the way of Pudding Lane, I imagine more modern buildings of this type have greater care taken with fire protection.
My Grandparents both died in the 1970’s and the house was sold. However my grandfather, who always stood up when the National Anthem was played on the TV, would be delighted to know he was in good company. Via Google I found that the same firm, Colt, has provided houses for the Queen and the Prince of Wales on the Sandringham Estate, though I’ll bet theirs don’t have pink painted fibreboard walls.
Today, pre-fabricated, timber framed buildings are gaining popularity again, more than 70 UK based firms offer variations on the product, although it was probably Colt who began the trend during the 1920’s. So there is no need to import your timber frames from Germany when so many UK firms, from Scotframe in Fife to Timberframe Wales to Colt, who are still going strong in Kent, can build you the oldest, latest thing.
*
(no recommendation is intended of any named products or organisations)
No comments:
Post a Comment