Markers Marks and Position of Beam on Ship

[Sarahd]

Hi,
I am hoping that someone on this forum will be able to help me.
I am trying to request some information that i have been given about a beam in an old Georgian restaurant in York. A customer gave the manager a piece of paper with a makers mark, position of beam in ship and year of build that he spotted whilst on vacation. No further questions were asked at the time but I would like to try and find out more information on the maker and position on the ship so we can have a bit of history from it.
I have no idea where I can look for a makers mark, neither do I have any nautical knowledge of where it may have come from on a ship.
I have attached the information I have in the hope that you can help me
Many thanks in advance
Sarah

 

[Abi Cott]

A lot of joinery marks were unique to the individual joiner. So Bob in Peterborough would have used a completely different system to Greg in Norwich. It may be possible to guess at the meaning of individual marks but I don't think there is a reliable dictionary of marks.

 

[Sarahd]

Okay thank you for your reply regarding marks - what about the position of the beam in the ship or the date? Would this follow the same rules?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Sarah I’m so sorry, I’m completely confused by your post. Could you say more?
Is there supposed to be a link between the restaurant in York and a ship?

 

[Sarahd]

Hi
The Beam of wood is in the restaurant but it has allegedly come from a part of ship by the markings on the piece of wood. Etched in the wood suggests it has a makers mark, place on ship and year of build. On looking at other sites, it appears that quite a lot of wood from ships was used in properties, however I cannot find any information regarding makers marks or nautical positions of wood in ships. The beam was put in many years ago. We are just trying to find out the history of it
Many thanks
Sarah

 

[CliffordPope]

A quick Google found this:

https://www.lassco.co.uk/lassco-news/2013/10/29/here-be-witchcraft/

Nothing to do with ships, apparently marks like that are well-known in old houses, as explained in the article.

People often claim old beams in houses have come from ships, sometimes adding that they were recovered from wrecks to make it sound more romantic.

 

[JoceAndChris]

People often claim old beams in houses have come from ships, sometimes adding that they were recovered from wrecks to make it sound more romantic.

Yes. It seems terribly fanciful. It’s one of those things people say that mystify me. Why would they go to the huge trouble of dragging beams from ships, in days before proper roads or rail, hundreds of miles, when the forests were stuffed with wood? :?

 

[philpjuk100]

I was involved in the "Southwell standing buildings project" which was lottery funded and run by Trent and peak archeology, We found similar markings on timbers in the outbuildings of "the Saracens head" hotel,they were said to be Baltic graffiti or Baltic timber marks and seem similar to the ones in your sketch,V,X,I, squares, diamonds, and circles.We were told that as British timber became scarce and expensive due to shipbuilding timber was imported for housebuilding from the Baltic countries and the timber would be felled and roughly shaped in the forests and ownership marked on it before sending it down the rivers to the ports.

 

[philpjuk100]

I also remember viewing a house for sale in Loughborough which looked to be a "between the wars" detached house but was a lot older when you got inside.It had an old beam over a doorway on the landing with a brass plaque on it which stated that "this beam came from Nelson`s flagship the Victory" but isn`t the Victory still in one piece in Southampton?.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I also remember viewing a house for sale in Loughborough which looked to be a "between the wars" detached house but was a lot older when you got inside.It had an old beam over a doorway on the landing with a brass plaque on it which stated that "this beam came from Nelson`s flagship the Victory" but isn`t the Victory still in one piece in Southampton?.

Not really. A few bits of the ship displayed at Portsmouth were at Trafalgar with Nelson, almost everything that's visible is, however, replacement following a major rebuild in the 1920s - during which, naturally, various beams became "available" for other projects. And, presumably, various beams from other projects got a dubious Victory provenance.
There are a handful of examples on the Norfolk Broads of old wherry masts being reused in agricultural and industrial buildings, and Chesapeake Mill at Wickham in Hampshire contains a substantial amount of the captured American ship of that name, but "ships timbers" almost invariably are no such thing.

 

[philpjuk100]

Loughborough seems a long way from the sea but anything is possible, the house was rendered and had UPVC windows but once inside there was a partial timber frame, sloping floors and a wattle and daub partition in the roofspace.We viewed it many years ago and on looking at it now on "google earth" it has had another makeover and apart from strange window heights looks like a new build.

 

[CliffordPope]

The three rather small doors in our attic did however come from a ship. Apart from being nicely jointed from thick teak planks, they have bronze fittings, and one of them has a plaque reading "Troisieme Mechanicien", which I take to mean Third Engineer.

I've got a wooden table lamp on a stone base with a plaque saying that the materials came from the Houses of Parliament. Perhaps removing them accounts for the building now being about to fall down.

 

[JanJonWestWales]

We dont have any Withcraft marks, but we do have lots of "Hewing" marks on many of the beams/joists.
Which would incicate that they were cut from felled trees, and possible re-used from previous houses.
Once saw a demontration of Hewing at a local fair, and the penny dropped.!

Our house is a 1758 Welsh Farmhouse.

Do many other people have Hewing marks?

 

[Greg.Hobson]

Not about ships. makers or even hewing marks, but just my thruppence-worth addition to the different marks that are available.

If I have managed to attach my first-ever picture it shows the beams forming the entrance to our attic in the truss in our bedroom. I have also shown the detail of the marks on each beam, which (I believe) simply mark up the joints and to show which end of which piece goes into the main beam. I understand this work was done about 30 years ago.



I am a very amateur woodworker, but I do now take the time and trouble to precisely label every joint so I don't put things together wrongly, as my family take great pleasure in pointing out every error, whether minor or major!

 

[MikeG]

How far from the coast is York?

Therefore, how likely is it that someone will have hauled a piece of timber there to build into a building? No chance... This crops up time and again, with nice straight timbers and orthodox jointing clients are always telling me "someone told me the timbers were from a ship". Well, if you live in an old house in an old port, you have a slight chance of that being true, but for everyone else it's just uneducated urban myth. As for the carpenter's marks, they weren't quite unique to each carpenter, but they varied regionally, and between different groups of carpenters. However, they didn't vary much as it was just a question of a simple chisel cut, using approx Roman numerals. They also repeat all over the building (you won't see MCCXl on a building with 1211 joints). Houses were built in "bays", and the marks on each of the bay frames may well be the same or similar. There is absolutely no way that you can tell the origin of a piece of timber from the carpenter's marks.

 

[paulwoodwork]

I'm always surprised by the certainty with which many people dismiss the use of secondhand timber from shipbreaking in traditional oak framing. We know for certain that secondhand timber was frequently used in framing, we know that good oak was becoming scarcer throughout the mediaeval and tudor period, and the king and the navy had first call on the best quality oak. So why wouldn't you use oak from a ship if you had the chance, particularly for a higher quality building? In York it would have arrived by river-it was a trading port for the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. I've got absolutely no idea if this particular beam is or isn't from a ship, but I don't see why it should be dismissed out of hand.

 

[livias]

two reasons that I can think of

Most importantly there are far far more oak-built houses than oak-built ships ... and always have been

Old oak is HARD and very difficult to work. Old oak that has been submerged in sea water will be even harder, so you would not want to use it anywhere that it could need jointing which eliminates pretty much all uses but 'cobbled together' houses and floor joists

 

[philpjuk100]

Our house contains many recycled beams such as this one which is molded but the molding stops a couple of feet short of the wall, others have rebates cut for timbers which are not there so probably from other buildings.You are correct about old oak being hard,I have been using cable staples with masonry nails and they require a good hammering to get them in,

 

[MikeG]

I'm always surprised by the certainty with which many people dismiss the use of secondhand timber from shipbreaking in traditional oak framing. We know for certain that secondhand timber was frequently used in framing, we know that good oak was becoming scarcer throughout the mediaeval and tudor period, and the king and the navy had first call on the best quality oak. So why wouldn't you use oak from a ship if you had the chance, particularly for a higher quality building? In York it would have arrived by river-it was a trading port for the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. I've got absolutely no idea if this particular beam is or isn't from a ship, but I don't see why it should be dismissed out of hand.

The shape of the timbers and the evidence of old joints is completely different, for a start.

 

[paulwoodwork]

The only use for curved sections would have been as braces. But internally, there were bridging beams and joists which could have been used- The bridging beams would have had a camber, but not necessarily on the underside. Old oak is really tough (except when it's really soft!) but still it was re-used and re-worked.