A blast form the past! The following article was featured in the October 2014 edition of Cutting Edge. David Winson FIOC writes about his visit to Stirling Castle, Scotland, and the spectacular roof timbers!
David and Maggie waiting for lunch; service was a bit slow but the roast swan was worth the wait!
I recently travelled to Scotland on business for a couple of days and decided to extend it so my wife Maggie and I could have a few days holiday; it was well worth the effort.
We visited Stirling Castle, a castle I’ve passed on my travels many, many times but one neither of us had ever visited.
You are perhaps wondering what that has got to do with Cutting Edge; probably not a lot.
However, I thought you might be interested in the roof of the Great Hall (on the front cover). I mentioned it the other day to the East Midlands’ secretary, Andy Eato MIOC and before I finished the sentence he enthused on the spectacular timbers of the aforementioned roof.
The original magnificent hammerbeam roof was removed at the end of the 1700s. It was replaced during the restoration of the hall, completed in 1999. The Great Hall is strongly medieval in character, with the usual features of a high-status building of this time, including niches for lost religious sculptures on the long façades, a chequerboard corbel table, crow-stepped gables and crenellations (castellated defences), with English and Continental influences. (1)
On 30 August 1594 the Great Hall was used to mark the christening of Prince Henry, the first-born son of James VI and his wife, Anna of Denmark. The climax of the great celebrations was the entrance of a splendid ship 5m long by 12m high which held the fish course, firing volleys from its 36 brass guns, floating on an artificial sea.
An artist’s impression of the feast held in the Great Hall at Stirling to celebrate the baptism of James VI’s eldest child, Prince Henry. [Note the dais at the head of the hall. Impression from the official guide.]
The restoration took 35 years. The building was repaired with 780 tonnes of stone and 350 oak trees were felled to make the new hammerbeam roof, modelled on the early 16th-century roof at Edinburgh Castle.
There are no metal fixings in the roof (other than the steel tie-bars preventing the walls from spreading). All joints are held in place by oak pegs.
The oak trees used came from the managed oak woodlands on the east shore of Loch Lomond.
The notice pictured to the right, on the West Highland Way, explains how the oak woodland was managed by the system of coppicing from the mid-seventeenth century to the end of the nineteenth century. Some trees, known as standards, were allowed to mature for their seeds and heavier timbers.
On 30 November 1999 (St Andrew’s Day) Her Majesty The Queen formally declared the restored Great Hall open.
Today the Great Hall can be hired for corporate seminars, formal banquets, charity events or ceremonies. It held the world premiere of Braveheart, the Scottish Fashion Awards and charity dinners held by J K Rowling and Gordon Ramsey.
The castle recently hosted the Armed Forces Day (27 June 2014) following the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn (1314), one of the most important battles in Scotland’s history.
David Winson FIOC
East Midlands
*(1) Extracted from the official guided tour information.
This article first appeared in the October 2014 issue of Cutting Edge. As part of the IOC membership, IOC members receive quarterly editions of Cutting Edge magazine and access to all back issues online.
For more information and to join the Institute of Carpenters Click here