Building the Longhall

2002

Over Easter 2002, the woodwork of the first bay was completed and it was time to put our sticks in the ground. This we achieved with minimalist methods, using ropes, a Land Rover and an electric winch!

By the middle of 2002, the rest of the main aisle timbers were ready for assembly, so choosing a weekend in July, we put together the central aisle. Because of the careful preparation of the timbers and forward planning, it all went without a hitch, there were no accidents and by the end of the weekend, we had arrived at a significant milestone in our project.

August Bank holiday and a weekend in October saw the side aisles completed and here we are, posing on the beam like a line of cheerful apes!

The last post! The culmination of a years work!

It is a powerful experience, working together on a project that has come to mean so much to us all. We have a far better appreciation of our own skills and weaknesses – and the shortcomings and longoings of our friends - than we ever did before. It is pleasant to see how we deal with a job, those that find it easy to lift the heavy timbers (the main uprights weigh about three quarters of a tonne each) do so, others clear away trip hazards, run about with blocks of wood to act as bearers when the timber meets its destination.

Some have no fear of heights and work high overhead in their safety harnesses as though they had been born in them.

We found we had a skilled surveyor in our midst that plotted the site to the nearest millimetre and another who had done a lot of site work and used a mini digger as an extension of his arm. Another turned out to be a specialist in ponds, lakes and aquatic plants – very useful skills when you dig a ten foot deep lake as part of the moat.

2003

The spring was fine and clear - in fact, the weather in the eastern tip of Kent is generally very dry in summer and we have had to take steps in order to keep water in our lake all year round. During 2003, the main focus of our work was turned towards completing the roof structure. After considerable thought, we decided to construct the four sections on the ground and lift them into place with a specially hired in crane. There was a great deal of repetitive, careful woodwork in order to create the top rafters, collar beams and the purlins that lock them all together.

As with every stage of design and construction, there was constant discussion about the best way to achieve our object and the construction of the roof was an excellent case in point. The chief designer, carpenter and marker-out, Kevin Cowley exhibited the patience of several Saints as every aspect of his design was examined, gnawed at and discussed. But he stuck to his guns over the roof structure and the A frame rafter sections were loosely assembled to the secondary aisle plates and then the clenched and trenched purlin, a solid piece of oak the length of the bay, three inches thick and eight inches deep, was driven into place with two twenty eight pound sledgehammers. These locked the whole thing solid and, when rapped with a knuckle, the completed section rang in a satisfying way. The ends of the main aisle plates were cut as simple half scarf joints, but the secondary aisle plates into which the upper rafters were fitted and the purlins which tie the whole upper roof structure into a solid whole demanded something more. They were cut into a joint that we nicknamed “dragon scarfs” and were designed to be double wedged to lock them together. It was a great tribute to our efforts to see these joints line up perfectly twenty-five feet up in the air and to draw the whole sixty feet of roof together in one unit as the matched sister wedges were driven into place. As the roof dries over the next ten years or so, they can be replaced with thicker ones to maintain the single integrity of the structure.

In all, 194 pieces of oak needed to be sawn to length, jointed and fitted together and this took us most of the summer, culminating in the Lift Day when all our hard work was hauled into the air and slotted into place in a little under five hours!

2004

The next job was to extend these rafters to the top of the outer aisle plates to complete the roof. We designed an ingenious tool that was invaluable in measuring the length of these rafters, enabling a simple production line to be set up and by the end of the last work weekend of the year in mid November, we had finished five eighths of the roof. It was completed over Easter 2004, almost two years to the day since we hauled the first bay into place with Dave Higginson’s Land Rover winch.

The main frame and roof structure were completed at Easter 2004, just two years to the day since we erected the first bay main frame. We had a little “topping out” ceremony and you can see the holly wreath in place on the end of the gable.

2005

By the end of 2005 the full structure of the hall is in place and the almost half the shingles put on the roof; the walls are beginning to take shape,

2006

The walls continue to grow and the roof is nearing completion. Work is spreading across the whole of the site as the pallisade is reaching the point at which it needs to be filled in and flinted. Plans are already underway for a chapel and other buildings within the burgh and we recently purchased enough land adjacent to the burgh for what may be an even bigger challenge - a stone church and more buildings. Wychurst may well become the largest reconstructed early medieval site in the world.

Please visit the new Wychurst development teams website at www.wychurst.com for more up to date information and pictures from the development team.

Last updated 2 April, 2006 . Article by Kim Siddorn 2004. Click here to return to the societies main page or the listing. © Regia Anglorum 2004. If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to e-mail us at webmaster@regia.org