Worcestershire Peasant Buildings,Household Goods and Farming Equipment in the Later Middle Ages

THE BUILDINGS of the Blackfriars priory in Gloucester are in the course of restoration by the Ancient Monuments Branch of the Department of the Environment. This provides an unusual opportunity to examine in a dismantled state an important series of scissor-braced roofs, to compare many timbers and joints, and thereby to consider the finer points of the 13th-century carpenter's workmanship and engineering sense, and the ways in which he reacted to variations in the timber. The value of such a study is increased by the existence of contemporary records about the origin of the timber.