I am a subscriber to Fine Woodworking in the UK. I enjoy the magazijne very much as it gives me a fresh slant on the subject compared to our publications.
I am coming to Boston in September for a holiday and would be most obliged if you could recommend any places for a keen woodworker to visit in the Boston area preferably that can be reached using public transport as I will not have a car.
I should also very much like to correspond by e-mail and discuss woodwork and compare notes about the different equipment and techniques, which I see from the magazine, are used in America.
I have been intersted all my life in woodwork, starting at school. In the fifties woodwork was still taught in schools in the UK and taught very well, alas it is hardly taught at all now, much the the disadvantage of the present generation. For most of my working life, which was spent in mechanical enginnering design, it served as a very pleasant hobby until at the age of fifty I was made redundant. Fifty year old Mechanical Designers are not much in demand here in the UK, newly qualified graduates being preferred, so a change of life was called for and I turned a hobby into a job. There followed the most contented ten years of my life until a health problem obliged me to retire and to again turn woodworking into hobby.
I do not want to bore you with any more biography but I look forward to any replies from you.
Regards
Trevor Winter (alias Dovetal – I know it is not very original )
Replies
The North Bennet Street School is located in Boston and is a highly regarded school teaching various crafts. You might look at their site http://www.nbss.org to see if it's worth a visit. Boston is a lovely city with much to see. Enjoy your visit.
Thanks for taking the trouble to reply to my e-mail.
I have visted New England once before. I love the houses there. Timber frame house are not so popular here in the UK so I enjoyed looking at them , especially the houses under construction so that I could see the techniques being used. We were lucky enough to be taken by our friends to see the Shaker village at Canterbury. What beautiful craftsmanship.
Thanks again
Trevor
Hello Trevor,
I am also interested in timberframing and a couple of years ago I spent two weeks in London and surroundings and saw some incredible timberframes, specifically the entire town of Lavenham as well as two magnificent tithe barns, one in Harmondsworth next to Heathrow.
If you get a chance to travel outside of Boston and would be inter3ested in another Shaker village like Canterbury, NH, I'd recommend Hancock Shaker Village just west of Pittsfield, Mass. It's at the western end of the state so it would be a day's drive. There is a beautiful round timberframed barn. Not too far from Pittsfield is the Heartwood school, http://www.heartwoodschool.com/ which offers timberframe and other woodworking classes.
I'll be back in London with my family at the end of June and hope to get into Westminister Hall, which has a magnificent hammerbeam roof structure.
Michael
Hello Michael
Thanks for your E-mail
There are some superb traditional timber framed buildings here in England. If you get a chance to visit Essex, it is a county that borders London, I would recommend a visit to Coggeshall (about 40 miles from central London) Paycock's , a merchants house dating back to c1500 open to the public 2-5-30pm Tues, Thurs. & Sun. Also in the same village is Grange Barn, one of the oldest surviving timber framed barns in Europe. Opening time same as Paycock's.
Within 10 miles of Coggeshall is the village of Cressing and here there are two magnificent barns nkown as Temple Barns because of their connections to the Knights Templar.
If you can obtain copies of the following books I would very much recommend them.
English Historic Carpentry and Church Carpentry, both by Cecil A Hewett. He has researched the consruction of timber framed buildings and has developed a system of dating the buildings by reference to the sophistication of the timber joints. The boks are lavishly illustrated with diagrams of the joint types and with many isometric diagrams of the builings. He ia acknowleged as the master of his subject and was responsible for a complete new understanding of the development on the timberfamed building in medeaval times.
If you would like any further information my e-mail address is [email protected]
Regard Trevor
Trevor, I have no answer to your Post however perhaps you can help me. I have the same questions regarding London which I will be visiting Next week. Have you any suggestions? Thanks, Joe.
Joe
Thanks for your e-mail . My message was the first that I have ever sent to any forum as I am a beginner on the internet.
We are very fortunate here in the UK as we have a large number of Stately Homes open to the public. All of these houses which were built over the past many hundreds of years have large collections of furniture. Also the quality of the joinery in these houses is something to be wondered at. Doors an door casings built to furniture quality standards etc.
If you are in London The Victoria and Albert Museum has a fine collection of furniture.
Also in London is The Geffrye Museum in Kingsland Road. has a fine collection of furniture set out in room settings. Each room represents a particular period eg Victorian, Georgian etc. right through to contemporary.
If you e-mail me back with the places you intend to stay at in the UK I will look up the nearest Houses open to the public in my National Trust Handbook.
Nice to hear from you
Regards Trevor.
Trevor, We will be staying at the Kensington Holiday Inn located at 100 Cromwell road. Thanks for all of your assistance.
Joe
This is my second e-mail . Unfortunately when I finished the last one I clicked the note at the bottom which says if you don't want to be informed of replies click here I don't know how to undo this instuction -I told you I was a beginner . My e-Mail address is [email protected].
Regards Trevor
You have hit a soft spot with me. I was a machine designer for 17 years and was made a dinasour in '91. I have been working retail ever since. What a S&*t way to make a living. Thank god for woodworking. I spent 11 days in London and loved it. What a great town with wonderful people.
Dave in Pa.
Trevor, I visited Boston about a decade ago, & went to two wonderful art museums. The larger museum (can't remember the exact names of the two), had an excellent collection of American antique furniture and also furniture by contemporary furniture makers (mostly chairs). Visitors were allowed to touch and sit on the contemporary pieces. The other museum is recommended also. It is, I think, the place where several Vermeers were heisted some years ago (never recovered that I know of). This is off topic: I went to the museum at Harvard where they have a collection of life-size flowers on their stems which were made in glass. Each one is an exact replica of a species. They were so realistic that it is hard to believe that someone could attain the skill to do that. They were displayed in a science building.
Trevor,
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts would be worth your time. Also, keep an eye on http://www.furnituremasters.org/ web site for their annual show and auction. They are professional woodworkers in New Hampshire who exhibit their work at a traveling display about the time you'll be in Boston (they also have displayed their work there). If you ever get to the Wilmington, Delaware area, Winterthur museum has a fine collection of American antiques from 1600's to 1840 housed in over 100 rooms.
Jeff
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