Stratford Hall - Part III: Designing with Brick

 

I had just published 2 posts on the practical geometry used to frame/construct Stratford Hall.*

The thinking, drawing, and writing about the overall structure of the Hall was done. 

I began exploring the drawings. 

The window layout was rhythmic, straight forward: all the windows on each floor were the same size. The space between them as well as the spaces between them and the corners were equal.  

 

As an architect I have used this pattern on new wings for old houses. I would size the windows to compliment the existing; then divide the remaining space evenly. Or perhaps I would give a little more width to the outside walls, depending on room layout requirements.**

Here, I thought, is a similar layout. 

However,  I was wrong.

As I thought about the proportions I was laying out a wood frame:  locating posts, beams, center lines of windows, heights indicated for headers, a window schedule. I was building the structure. The character of the exterior and interior would come later with the addition of sheathing, siding, and plaster finished with trim and moldings. 

The interior and the exterior of a brick frame are the structure, they are not added later. Stratford Hall was built of brick. Its character comes from the manipulation of the brick.

So, from the beginning the masons who worked for William Walker, the Master Builder, needed to know:  

 

Where to lay Flemish Bond using brick of just one color? Where use the whiter bricks as headers?

Where to leave window openings? How wide, how tall? 

 

 

 

What brick pattern to use at the window openings? How many bricks? At the corners of the wings too?

Where to use a flat arch as a header? Where a rowlock arch? 

Where to place the brick cap and make the brick wall thinner?

That question was easy to answer: where the wall diminishes just above the joist pockets which hold the main floor joists.

 

 

In this image you can see how much information William Walker had to give the masons as they began. 

How many rows at grade before the  
the corner brick pattern begins, as well as the use of lighter headers?  

What is the height of the ground floor windows, and their width?  

The brick details at the sides windows and at the corner which needed careful calculations are visible here.             

The black line at the corner is an electrical cord.

 

When I knew the issues I could ask the question:  

How did William Walker, Master Builder, lay out the elevations?

 

I will propose some answers in the next post.

*  See previous posts:

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/06/stratford-hall-and-paul-buchanan.html

https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/07/stratford-hall-part-ii-geometry-of.html 

** I knew about the use of proportion and rhythm in architecture and applied it for many years before I 'discovered' Practical Geometry. I studied the illustration in pattern books without understanding the numbers engraved along the sides of those drawings nor pausing to read the texts. I did not 'discover' the practical use of geometry: I finally read the text in the books and studied the scales.

 

 

 

 

The Geometry of a Corn Crib

Our corn crib:  built c. 1810, photographed c. 2000. 

Well used, in need of attention, like every building on the farm.

 

 

In time we replaced the roof. Then we removed rotten siding.

 

 

 

  

 

We were surprised!The crib's post and beam frame was scribed! It has neat, precise marriage marks which, in this part of Vermont, are found on frames which were built 1800 -1820.

On the left are 'll" on both post and brace. On the right the marks on both post and brace are "llll".

 
 

 When our house was built  in 1810, the corn crib may have been here.

It has been moved at least 3 times.  It has been repaired, reinforced; its interior reconfigured. It has held corn, feed, tools, chickens, furniture, and been home to many birds.

Its plan:

A rectangle divided into 3 equal bays. The lengthwise framing in the larger space labeled 'corn' may have been flexible partitions. The tool and grain storage space has a low ceiling to allow more head room in the loft above it.

 

 

 

A cross section of the crib at the partition 

It is about 15 ft. wide at the base. Today its sill is about 24" above grade on the south end, 12" on the north.

 

 

 

 

Of course I was curious about the geometry. 

A corn crib was useful, and utilitarian. It served a purpose without frills. 

What was the simple, direct way to lay out its frame?

 

The floor plan: a rectangle with 4 corner posts and 4 evenly spaced intermediate posts. 

The dashed line shows the slope of the walls. The slope keeps rain off the corn. It's possible that the angle also keeps the cobs from locking in place. 

The slope was determined by a simple choice - see below*.

 

Today a carpenter would lay out the plan with a tape measure and a steel square. In 1810, these tools did not exist. Instead the carpenter used geometry.  

Here is the basic layout for a square as drawn by Audel in 1923.  This could have been used for the corn crib.

The layout using the geometry of a circle:

A-A is the width. Its arcs become the radius of the circle. They cross at the center of the circle. Then the circle is drawn with marks where 6 arcs cross the circle. 2 of the arcs cross at B and B: 2 at C and C.

 Draw 2 lines:  A-B and A-B. They are the sides of the  plan. 

2 intermediate posts are located at C and C, where the circle's arcs cross the lines A-B.

 Swing 2 more arcs from the corners of the plan: center of the arc on A, Then swing from the other A to C.  They cross the earlier arcs at D and D. The Line D, extended divides A-C in half and is the location of the next set of posts.

The arcs with their centers on both  D's, swung from the other D, locates E which marks the length of the  corn crib floor. (I drew only one.)

I can draw this layout much faster than I can write about it. Even so, it takes too long. I think a master carpenter would already know the geometry which I've laid out here and would have used short cuts.

 

He would have had a framing floor, probably in a barn.  

He would know the general plan. He and his client would have reviewed size and any needed variations. The work just  needed to be laid out. He would have used twine and awls, a chalk line to mark the lines on his framing floor. 

I  have drawn the chalk line set to both points, and a squiggle where the line is not held tight

A= the width of the corn crib, the ends of the rectangle.

Both sides need to be perpendicular to A: the 3/4/5 triangle  - B - sets the corner. The carpenter could then snap his Line - D - on both sides. Folding his Line -A- in half he could lay out 3 lengths along his Line, and then connect the 2 sides. The plan for the crib was done.

 

The plan could be easily 'trued' by checking that the diagonals of the whole rectangle, solid lines - E, as well as those for the 3 smaller rectangles, dashed lines - F, matched.

 

 

 

The elevation, here laid out with a compass.  

 

 

 

 Again, I think it would be easier to lay out the frame with a chalk line, using the width of the crib as the unit of the square.

 

The square and its diagonals.

Note that the diagonals cross at the location of the  beam that carries the loft. This is the first point.

 

 

2 points are necessary to draw a Line - or to snap a chalk line. The carpenter divided his Line in half, locating the vertical center line of the square.

The diagonals on the right half cross to give the carpenter his 2 points. He could locate the beam carrying the loft over the feed bins.

 

 

 

 

 

Next the carpenter needed to set the wall height. He added one diagonal on the left side; then the diagonals for the upper half of the square.

He had 2 more points whose Line (dashed here) located the plates for the side walls and the roof.

 

 

Finally he used half his unit (the width of the crib between walls) as the height to the ridge of his roof.  Here I have drawn it as an arc.

 

 

 

 

 

 * Now he was ready to layout the slope  for the walls.

A straight line (with arrows) from the outside of the sill at the bottom is on the inside of the plate at the top of the wall. This determines the slant of the walls.

I didn't discover this myself. Someone showed me. Unfortunately I don't remember who and can't give him credit. 

 

 

 

The 'front' of the corn crib today. We added a window, matching  one already in the crib.

\

The 'back' of the crib.

We moved the door to the 'back'  as we no longer unload from a wagon.

The hollyhocks self-seeded here. They approve of our work.

 

 

Post Script:  Images of the frame

 

 

Post, plates, and rafters in a corner of the crib

 

 

 

 

 3"x4" braces cut by a sash saw, pegged.

 

 

 

 

The original rafters are 3" x 4", cut by a sash saw.

Later logs were added between the rafters and butted together. Many of the logs are birch.

 

 

The rafters were mortised and tenoned at the ridge.The large peg is visible here.

Knob and tube wiring and electrical cable are still in place though today the crib has no electricity. 

At one point there was also telephone line.

Stratford Hall, Part II: The Geometry of the Elevations

Stratford Hall, begun in 1736 - As visitors would have seen it when they came to the house from the plantation's docks on the Potomac River.

 

My first post on Stratford Hall* looked at the how the foundation plan was composed of 5 equal squares. The location of the central hall which runs between the chimneys was also shown to be sited by the circle that laid out the squares.

The Master Builder, William Walker,** seems to have used  the square as his geometry to layout the house.  Did he use the square for the rest of the plans and elevations?  I obviously think he did, but we have few notes, only his actual construction as proof.

 

Was the width of the chimney bases determined by those squares?

Probably. The exterior dimensions of the house foundation and the chimney bases would have been set at the same time. Here are the Lines which divide the width of the square into 4 parts: one part on each side for doorways, 2 parts in the middle for chimney masonry.  The Lines are not quite accurate: note the red lines with arrows. Perhaps this is because the masons who built fireplaces had different skills than those who laid brick walls and the dimensions were not as critical. 

 

 

 Note that these Lines, when I added them to the square based on the inside of the brick walls, give no useful information.

 

 

A brick wall can be measured from the outside or the inside.

 A garden wall needs 2 parallel Lines (twine) to be staked - one on each side of the wall - to guide the construction.

 A brick wall for a building would also have 2 Lines. The bricklayer, checking his Lines for a building layout must decide which side of the wall to use.

 

 

 

At Stratford Hall a square and its lines define the exterior dimensions; they sets the size of the wing from ground to ridge pole at the top of the square (A).  The third points (B) mark the height of the brick walls which is the location for the  plate for the roof trusses. 

The lines which divide the square into 4 equal section locate the width of the chimney stack - note where they cross (C) in the middle of the square.

 

 

 

 

The lines of the square, based on the width from the interior side of the brick walls, cross at the floor-to-floor height of the lower level (D). This dimension tells the mason where the joist pockets for the floor joists to carry the main floor should be located. 

The central space of the house is the Hall, the place to gather and entertain. See my previous post for floor plans.*

Here the square is based on the inside dimension: brick wall to brick wall, just as it was for the wings. 

The geometry of the wings (the drawing above) applies here too: the location of the main floor and the height of the walls is the same.

The ceiling of the Hall is vaulted: a tray ceiling, sloped on all 4 sides. The height of the ceiling is not arbitrary but is determined by the height of the walls. 

 A red line encloses the hall and its ceiling;

The scale on the right side shows the wall height divided into 4 parts. The height of the sloped part of the tray ceiling is 1 part.   

4 parts = wall height, 5 parts = floor to ceiling.  

The Master Builder could have used the floor of the hall as a framing floor for this ceiling, making the height simple to calculate. 

At this small size the diagram of the square and its lines gets messy. So I chose a different way to show the relationships. 

 

* My first post on Stratford Hall:  https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/06/stratford-hall-and-paul-buchanan.html

** For a biography of William Walker see https://chipstone.org/article.php/559/American-Furniture-2006. He was a Scotsman, probably trained as a joiner and wright in Scotland, who immigrated to Virginia before 1730. He would have known of the work of James Gibbs and Colen Campbell. He might have known them.

 

 

 

 

Stratford Hall, Part I: Paul Buchanan's Ideas

This post is an introduction to my understanding of the geometry of  Stratford Hall, the plantation and home of the Lees of Virginia for 4 generations  beginning in 1736.

Here is the house as it looked this spring when I was there for 3 days. 

In the gift shop I found the book  Paul Buchanan Stratford Hall.* Of course I bought it.

The book focuses on Buchanan's  research at Stratford Hall from 1984-1993, after it introduces us to his historic preservation work at Colonial Williamsburg as well as other Great Houses in Virginia, including Gunston Hall.

This image on page 14 is from one of Buchanan's favorite pattern books, The London Tradesman, by R. Campbell, published in London in 1747.

I spotted the compass leaning against the beam, and the man to the far left, probably the builder, with his rod. That led me to the book which is available online. 

It is a fascinating review of the trades in mid-18th c. London. Geometry is listed, among others, as a necessary skill. 

Chapter XXXI, Of Architect and those employ'd in that Branch, lists the skills men need to succeed in that profession.  Campbell writes that an architect's "head (must be) Mathematically and Geometrically turn'd."  and "Besides this Plan he generally forms a Model in Wood." pages155-6

For a stone mason, "Geometry is absolutely necessary". page158

For a carpenter: "He must understand as much Geometry as related to Measuration (the act of measuring) of Solids and Superficies (surface areas)". page 160

For a joiner: "His Business requires that he should be acquainted with Geometry and Measuration". page 161  

Of course I wanted to understand how Buchanan applied this, what he knew about the geometric skills listed by Campbell. I study how our ancestors used geometry as a practical tool for construction, as well as for design.

Using the HABS drawings for the house, done in 1969, Buchanan overlaid squares and a circle.

His squares 'work': they fit. However they do not tell us much about how to build the house. They do not provide clear and simple information - the layout of the plan, the size of the spaces and their relationship to each other - for the Master Builder who, at Stratford Hall, was William Walker.

 

I used the width of the wings as the dimension of a square to lay out the foundation plan using 5 squares. The middle square is centered between the 2 wings. The foundation would have been easy to layout with compasses, and a rod, both of which are in Campbell's illustration.

 

 

Twine, also essential, is not in the illustration. Maybe it was too skinny - just a line. (A deliberate pun: twine marks the 'Line' - as in 'chalk line'- which the builder needs in order to build.)

Here is the width of the east wing used as the radius for a circle, drawn in red. The 6 points of the circle locate the square, drawn here in black. 

I drew this for the readers of this post who might not know how a daisy wheel can be used. In the process I saw that the foundations for the fireplaces are also located, see the black dashed line.

For an introduction to the use of a daisy wheel see: https://www.jgrarchitect.com/2023/01/geometry-in-construction-practical.html

* Paul Buchanan Stratford Hall and Other Architectural Studies, copyright 1998,  Robert E. Lee Memorial Association, Inc. Stratford Hall Foundation, Stratford, VA.

 

 

That daisy wheel you found? Please trace it for me.

 If you found a daisy wheel scribed on an old building, please trace it, copy it, and send me the full scale image with a note about where it was found, on what kind of building. 

I want to compare daisy wheels and measure their diameters. Here's why. 

The daisy wheels we find today were scribed with a compass on posts, on beams, sheathing, walls: a circle with 6 points, 6 petals, evenly spaced, drawn using the radius of the circle.

200 years ago they were a practical tool for layout and design, simple geometry, easy to use and true - accurate - in a world without fixed dimensions. Standardized dimensions came with interchangeable parts which we didn't need until the Industrial Revolution.  

Daisy wheels have been noted and copied. Rarely have we measured their diameters. Are the  diameters of daisy wheels a scale, just as the notation- 1/4"=1'O" -  is a scale? Maybe, But I can't tell from only 3 examples. I need to check a lot more! 

This is my daisy wheel and its 9 ft. long board.  It was part of an outbuilding of a barn in Vermont.The center of the wheel is  46" from the floor, a good height for a workman setting his basic dimension for his compass width (the diameter of the daisy wheel) as he began work and checking it as he needed throughout the day. It was also useful information for those who came later, expanding or repairing the farm complex.

My daisy wheel was easy to find. However, many are discovered in obscure places, on beams and roof sheathing. As a frame was cut that piece of the frame (usually sheathing) was a notice board. When the frame was raised, the wheel had served its purpose. The sheathing however, cut by hand and water power, was too valuable to discard. It became part of the frame.

This daisy wheel was on roof sheathing of a barn in upstate New York, built c. 1795. Unlike the daisy wheel above (which has deep holes at its center and at the outer points of the petals as they meet the circumference of the circle) this wheel is cleaner, probably used only for this barn, not the larger barn complex around it.

 Here is a tracing of it. 

 Both of these daisy wheels measure 8" + a smidgen. The depth and age of the scribe's grove makes precision difficult.  However: 8.25" x 2 = 16.5".  16.5" x12 is a rod, 16.5 feet.

The rods laid out by stepping off these 2 daisy wheels' diameters might differ from each other by several inches. But each frame would be consistent within itself.

A rod was a common dimension in England. It was also called a 'pole' and a 'perch'. Land surveyors still measure land in rods today. 

 

This daisy wheel is on the interior side of the sheathing on the second floor of the Gedney House in Salem, Massachusetts, built in 1665, expanded in 1712, and 1800, The house is now owned by Historic New England.

 

 

 

 

 The daisy wheel is quite small.

 

 

 

Its diameter is 5.5". 5.5" x 3 = 16.5". 16.5" x 12 = a rod.



  

 

The neat, small ones which we find may be the signature of a trained master carpenter or mason. Laurie Smith (English Geometer, 1936- 2021) showed me one carved into a stone mantle. He had found that the geometry governed the design and was also probably a signature. 

 

This one comes from  the Beatty-Cramer House in Maryland.The wheel diameter is 3". It and the 'eye' below it might be Masonic symbols of God and Truth, as geometry was known to be true. The understanding that geometry is 'true' was not part of my high school geometry class.  I learned that from carpenters.

 

Palladio wrote c.1570 that he would use the diameter of a column as his 'module', his measure for his work.  Here's his drawing: 

The column is a circle. It is laid out with a compass, Its diameter, stepped off using a compass, is the module: it measures the distance between the columns. The scribed daisy wheels that we find today are also modules.

 

Here he is, holding his compass.

 

 

So - if you know of a daisy wheel, can trace it, and send the tracing to me, please let me know. Thanks.

Daisy wheels are said to be apotropaic. However I have not yet read a record made by someone of the period noting the deliberate addition of a daisy wheel to a building to ward off evil. I am skeptical.