Project background

From the year 1211 the Knights Hospitaller settled in Ansty forming a small ‘Commandery’, comprising the Commander or Preceptor, two Knights, a Chaplain, three minor clerics, the local Commander’s Esquire and six servants.
It is thought that an original hospice was replaced by a large building, probably a banqueting house, in 1596. Despite a fire in 1922 which destroyed the roof, the building was reconstructed in 2001 including the restoration of the vaulted roof by Carpenter Oak & Woodland which won a Civic Trust award in 2002.

The oak structure includes striking shallow arch brace trusses and is approximately 30 meters long and 6m wide with the ridge rising 6m above the wall plate. Compared to trusses with a tie beam, arch braced trusses are prone to spread, pushing the walls out. When a new building is commissioned, this can be overcome by designing in adjacent braced structures, or buttresses as restraints to the walls, or alternatively steel can be selectively inserted to minimise the effect (see our images of Wells Cathedral). In the case of this structure, providing new buttressing was clearly not an option, meaning that the threat to the ancient walls was significant. As a result, having constructed these trusses, the bases were rested on specially designed Teflon pads to allow a certain amount of settling in without asking the walls to move to accommodate excessive outward forces.

---

Filter projects by keyword

·

---

Other galleries

Residential |

Commercial |

Restoration |

Timber engineering |

---

 

 External view of the restored hall

After considerable research and discussions, a series of nine arch braced trusses with separate raised collars was decided on.

Arch braces have a tendancy to spread, so here the trusses rest on teflon pads to prevent excessive outwards force being placed on the walls during settlement. 

 One of the impressive access doors.

< previous · next >