TreetreeTREE

Many of the buildings we marvel at have been made of timber grown for the purpose. Just a few examples of remarkable structures show the importance of trees, particularly the oak, for construction in earlier centuries. To minimise transport costs, waste and effort, new timbers were fashioned from tree trunks and branches sized as nearly as possible to the final dimensions required for the job. Timber was always a precious material, often re‐used from what we might now term architectural salvage, as at Cressing Temple in Essex and Valley Farm in Constable country.