Angel Roofs of East Anglia: Unseen Masterpieces of the Middle Ages by Rimmer Michael

Author:Rimmer, Michael [Rimmer, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780718843199
Publisher: Lutterworth Press
Published: 2015-11-26T05:00:00+00:00

The roof of any building was a carpenter’s test and the place he could best show his imaginative understanding of invisible forces. Composed of rafters, collars, purlins and tiles, the roof was usually the heaviest part of the building not directly pegged to the ground. It exerted the strongest forces, both straight down and outward. And it was always the part most exposed to wind and storm. Each member of a roof truss – the triangular … assembly of rafters and tie beams – is a force made visible. Gravity flows down the roof rafters and pushes at the walls on which the roof sits. The tie beam resists, holding the two pieces in tension. Above the tie beam, the carpenter places a collar – a smaller and higher version of the tie beam – to siphon off some of gravity’s pull. Beneath the collar a post or pair of arched braces would let the forces cascade down to the centre of the tie beam. Beneath the tie beam, more arched braces led out to a lower level of the walls, letting the forces run out into the ground.

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