Strengthening and repairs to late medieval timber structures at Cannington Court, UK

Abstract

Cannington Court, Bridgwater, UK, was founded as a nunnery in the thirteenth century. It was developed over the years and went through a number of uses before becoming a training college in the shape of two quadrangles of buildings. It has recently undergone a major refurbishment which involved the inspection and repair of all timber structures, in particular the roof trusses around the main quadrangle, some of which date to the fourteenth century. Many of the roof trusses were found to be in very poor condition, unable to support the roof satisfactorily and, in some cases, unable to support themselves. This led to the difficult decision of whether to repair by splicing in new timbers, which would lead to much loss of historic fabric, or to insert steelwork to support the trusses. This paper describes the solution, to introduce steelwork support frames, in a way which minimised the loss of historic fabric and also met better the requirements of cost and programme. In addition, the paper describes repairs to timber girders and how it became apparent that previous generations could not be trusted to have done the job properly.