Westminster Hall Hammer Beam Roof

It concludes that the hammer beam carpentry was crucial to the roof s structure and that herland intended the hall s great arched ribs primarily as ornamental components.

Westminster hall hammer beam roof.

The work was largely undertaken by the king s chief mason. The beams and the roof itself weigh a collective 836 tons with the timbers of the beams weighing 660 tons. The span of westminster hall is 20 8 metres 68 ft. The paper also places the westminster roof in the context of earlier hammer beam roofs particularly pilgrims hall winchester.

Westminster hall served as the center of london s legal system hosting the courts of the king s bench common. 4 in and the opening between the ends of the hammer beams 7 77 metres 25 ft. The roof timbers were entirely made from oak which formed into thirteen 660 ton arches supporting the 176 ton lead roof. The roof of westminster hall 1395 1399 is a fine example of a hammerbeam roof.

Only equally massive buttresses could support the massive hammer beams and arches of westminster hall. Westminster hall s detail of hammer beam roof this is a close up of the hammer beam roof constructed by hugh herland in the late fourteenth century.