Fig. 5. Shaped shingles, showing effect produced on fitting. Fig. D. Shinglingin progress. a draw knife, while being held in a shaving horse (foot operated vice with seat). The sides are cleaned with an axe or jointer plane (long plane solidly fixed with blade uppermost to allow material to be pushed through), and its ends cleaned and slightly bevelled with an axe. The finished shingles should ideally now be stacked, lying flat (with alternate layers at 90°) weighted as heavily as possible and left for at least a year. This natural riven shingle although expensive and time consuming to make will give the longest service life. The wood will have its most weatherproof face (in line with rhe medulary rays) exposed to the weather and have been cut through the parallel lines of annular rings across its width so as to offer the maximum absorbence to face applied loads and resistance to bending. This is also the line of minimum twist during seasoning. Many modern shingles, especially cedar, are sawn co a long capering shape for consistent size and ease of fixing. This improves the production economics but is more than offset by the reduced life and the requirement to treat regularly with preservative. If the timber is sawn it will not follow the growth rings and medulary rays bur break through leaving open pores co let in water and weather. Shingles are fixed co a roof (normally with two nails) onto horizontal battens which ideally should be of the same timber as the shingle and cleft for long life.7 Stainless steel nails now replace iron, or (more recently), with cedar, copper nails. le was noted even in very early times chat the strong in ceraccion of the tannin in the oak caused accelerated corrosion with the iron. In many cases the nails were required co be tinned, as we might today galvanise a nail. For ultimate cover and weatherproofing shingles should be sec with a lap cover of 2'/, - 3 rimes. This means char they should be 12-15 inches long co give a similar cover co clay tiles. Scarring with a double row at the eaves they are individually fitted co align with each other and lie closely on the face of the layer below. The shingles should not be burred against each other coo rightly, especially in dry weather, as this will cause them co buckle in periods of damp weather when the wood will naturally expand. CONTEXT 40 This fitting is usually done with an axe9 although some craftsmen will also use a plane to trim the edges. Outer corners of a roof are overlapped and trimmed later. Often these corners are further weatherproofed by placing lead soaker plates around each corner under the exposed layer. The inside of valleys can be lead lined as with tile or slate valleys. OTHER COUNTRIES The loss of interest in using shingles as a roof covering in Britain has not affected their use in other countries. In North America if a roof rile were requested a wooden shingle would be offered. Today N onh America 8 is the main source for most of the material used in Britain. Red cedar is the wood used and it is shingles from this material char are co be found on most of the remaining shingled roofs. They are very commonly found in Europe, in a broad band mainly running down from the Arctic co the Black Sea as well as down the western side through Germany and into France. CONCLUSIONS One reason given by documentary historians for the change co rile in the 13th century was rhe fire risk of shingles, but they were included in the suggested list for safer roof coverings in London in the early I 3th century. 10 As with all roof coverings the life is limited by the material used, the base structure or fixing method, and shingles are no exception. They do need replacing and one does not expect co find original shingles on a 600-year-old building. 11 Oak shingles in normal circumstances could be expected co have a life of up co a hundred years. During 1992 rhe spire of All .Saints' Church at Maldon, Essex was refurbished. With the help of an English Heritage grant it now has a wondrous covering of riven oak shingles. The shingles as supplied were far from perfect but were trimmed and fitted by good traditional means. The spire, being a unique hexagonal shape, on a triangular cower, is very special, and now stands proudly showing its cloak of new shingles. Think carefully before decrying chem. They are a natural vernacular material in all areas where timber is found. They can be fitted by traditional labour, last longer than thatch, are aesthetically pleasing, and in many instances are more suitable than tile. Forger the disease and chink of the roof covering. NOTES 1. Shingles do nor get a mention in SPAB's Repair of Ancient Buildings 1929 (reprinted I 981) or in Timber Building in Britain by R W Brunskill. Margaret Wood in The English Mediaeval House produces a series of quotes from old documents bur offers no comment. The greatest derail is offered by Alec Clifton-Taylor in The Pattern of English Building alrhough I personally do nor agree with all of his derail, e.g. spires do nor twist because they are covered with shingles - it is rhe spire frame construction that determines whether rhe spire will twist; see Survey of spire of All Saints' Church, Ma/don, Essex, T.E. Watkin, 1992. Copies with EH, NMR, Essex RO and ar All Saints'. David Marrin in Historic Buildings ofEastern Sussex Vol. 1. does note references to shingles from the I 5th and I6th centuries used on houses and farm buildings and earlier in rhe 14th century rhe use of shingles on the buildings of Barrie Abbey. 2. John Harvey: Medieval craftsmen, 1975 3. Vitruvius: The Ten Books on Architecture, trans. Morris Hicky Morgan, I9 I4. 4. L.F. Salzman: Building in England down to 1540, I952 (reissued 1992). 5. I think this operation is the one referred to in old documents rhar many people have read as implying rhar rhe shingles rhemselves were sawn in very early rimes, which considering the skilled woodcrafr available seems very unlikely. The point can also be made that until power saws were a common feature of business rhe cost of hand sawing would exceed that of the riven product. 6. Philip Walker: Tools, Shire, 1980; J. Gerainr Jenkins: Traditional Country Craftsmen, 1965; or H.L. Edlin: Woodland Crafts in Britain, 1949. All cover many of rhe traditional rools used by rhe woodworker. 7. In earlier times shingles were normally fixed ro a boarded roof with nails or pegs and the shingle layer was used ro form the waterproof coating. Th is method is still used in some countries. 8. In North America the shingle is often referred to as a 'shake' when riven and not sawn. Quoted from Canadian Wood-frame House Construction Rev. 3 published in 1968. 9. Nathaniel Lloyd in rhe History of the English House, I 931, quotes from articles concerning the I3114th cenruries which compare saw and axe "a contemptible innovation fit only for those unskilful in rhe handling of rhe nobler instrument" - the axe. I0. John Schofield: The Building of London, 1984. 11. Hugh Braun: English Mediaeval Architecture, 195 I, offers great praise to "rhe available skill of the Anglo-Saxon wrights must have lavished upon these elaborate timber steeples ... with their sides and roofs covered with shingles". Elphin Watkin, is a ji-eelance operator, recording buildings, writing reports and carrying out specific surveysconcerninghistoric buildings, their construction and the use of traditional materials. 31
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