Use of ships beams

[daithedock]

I recently took down some plasterboard and found a small brass plate nailed to one of the main beams. I'm aware that old ships timbers were recycled into houses and wonder if this plate indicates this? The plate is an upright triangle about two and a half inches high and one and a quarter across the base. The edges are scalloped and there is a long number engraved into it. This is only just legible as the figures are extremely small. Any info welcome. Many thanks.

 

[Penners]

Do let us see a photo, please!

The "ship's timbers" story is pretty widespread. There are undoubtedly some old houses that incorporated one or two timbers recycled from scrapped ships, but if you believe every ship's timber story from every house where this claim is made, you'd have enough timbers to build Henry VIII's fleet all over again!

However, that's not to say it's impossible for yours to be one of the genuine ones, though. How old is the house, and where are you? What are the numbers engraved on it?

 

[KayW]

You maybe lucky but I was told recently by a timber frame specialist in my area that the reusing of ship timbers was a bit of an old wives tale and rarely happened. More likely to be from a previous house. Good timber became difficult to souce and so there was a lot of recycling and later lesser quality/thinner timbers were used.

Would love to see a picture!

 

[shelli]

Possible ways to check if timber is from a ship:-

1. Is there a parrot perched atop the beam?

2. Are there barnacles?

3. Any tell tale graffiti - e.g "blackbeard woth here" (pirates can't spell)

4. does it smell salty?

Shelli
:wink:

 

[Penners]

:lol: :lol: :lol:


...and does it shiver (Jim lad)?

 

[daithedock]

Oh Shelli! You're such a wit! Good to have a laugh tho'! I'll take a pic tonight and see if I can work out how to post it. I'm not the most technical of people. I don't know how old the house is. Tried researching in local archives and got nowhere. Construction is stone end walls with Oak frame walls in between. These had been hidden by a later brick facing externally and plasterboard internally. I only found the frame by accident when I 'lost it' one night trying to get wallpaper off, and ripped off a section of the plasterboard! Frame still had some lath attached both in and out, with lime render. Lath was very 'crude' for want of a better word. The timber walls were built onto beams which look to have been laid onto bare earth. Has an inglenook but no sign of a 'bread oven'. The house is in Mid-Wales. If anyone knows how I can date it let me know as I'm having no luck. Doesn't help that the place has been so messed with in the past. Incidentally, the joints are all one inch pegs if that means anything.

 

[Nemesis]

The house is in mid Wales?

While there are documented examples of ships' timbers being used, it tended to be near where there was water ... unlikely that any ship would be dismantled and the wood transported miles inland at great expense and difficulty, given the state of roads in the 'orse and cart era. Re-use from another building was certainly done.

http://calvin.st-andrews.ac.uk/external_relations/news_article.cfm?reference=363


http://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/dockyard/historiclandmarks.php

The three Great Storehouses which dominate Main Road were built between 1760 and 1790 and kept an enormous range of provisions to house the ships' stores and equipment needed for Britain's rapidly expanding fleet. Their interior structures are largely built of re-used ship timbers as are the wooden floors of the colonnades.

 

[Nemesis]

Anyhow - in Wales such cooking hearths are known I believe as 'simne fawr' or something equally as forin', but I am sure Gervase will be along soon and describe how to reline with cow muck...


http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/ppuk_discovering_article_042.shtml


http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/ppuk_discovering_article_021.shtml

 

[Penners]

The house is in mid Wales? ...ships' timbers ... tended to be near where there was water ... unlikely that any ship would be dismantled and the wood transported miles inland at great expense and difficulty

Unless of course the ship was going at a hell of a speed when it hit the shore.

I've always been puzzled at the very idea of ship's timbers being used to build houses, given that a ship was generally a much more valuable item than a house. OK, maybe a few really clapped out old timbers were incorporated into waterside buildings, but I still don't believe that it was a widespread practice.

 

[Nemesis]

The eight pillars in the church, seven of which are of wood, have led to great controversy as, according to tradition, they were made from the masts of vessels in the great Spanish Armada. This has been proved to be untrue, as a document in the British Museum dated 1575 states that the masts and yards of the ships were to be of the best Prussian pine from Flanders. Upon examination by experts from the Kew Botanical Gardens, of samples bored from the columns, they were discovered to be made of oak; further, the ships of that great fleet were much too small to carry masts of such weight and size.

http://www.mernick.co.uk/thhol/stmatthi.html


It's an interesting place to visit, though.

 

[daithedock]

Hmm, I get the point about being so far from the sea. Maybe someone just nailed it up there to wind me up in the future. The number is ?2233327 and is hellish small. It's actually only 2" high. I'm having probs attaching the pic but will try again later. Again, if someone can give me some pointers about dating the place I'd appreciate it, ta.