In the past, oak was used to make the timber frames of houses, farm buildings, inns, Elizabethan theatres, and the roof beams of castle halls, cathedrals and parish churches. It has also been the preferred material for boats and ships since at least 1,550 BC, when a Bronze Age oak, discovered in Dover, was built. Find out about it here. 

Cutting the wood

Carpenters were responsible for every stage of building in oak, from choosing a likely tree to chop down to making the pegs to hold the timbers together. They began by felling the tree, using axes. They then trimmed away the parts of the tree they would not use for timber. None of it was wasted. The branches were used to make charcoal or saved for firewood, while the bark was boiled for tannin, to make leather from hides. Even the layer of fibres beneath the bark was useful, for rope-making.

In the early Middle Ages, logs were split into planks using wedges and mallets, while the cutting and shaping of timber was done with axes and adzes [similar to axes but with an arched blade at right angles to the handle]. This was how the Sutton Hoo ship was made, and the ships for William the Conqueror's invasion fleet in 1066. The Bayeux Tapestry shows William's ships being made, and all the carpenters are using axes and adzes. 

By the time of the Norman conquest, saws were beginning to be used, though these were initially too expensive for most carpenters. Domesday Book records just 13 saws in the whole kingdom. Yet the advantage of a saw is that it will always cut a straight plank, unlike splitting with a wedge. An axe wastes a lot of wood in the form of chips, while a saw produces much less waste, in the form of sawdust. So the use of saws gradually spread.

A medieval saw had a handle at each end, with a long blade, whose teeth all pointed in the same direction. To saw a log, it would be rested against a trestle, or placed over a hole called a ''sawpit''. When a pit was used, the master sawyer stood on top of the log, guiding the blade, while the bottom sawyer worked in the pit, pulling the blade downwards. The bottom sawyer had a tough job, for he had to supply all the muscle. 

Sawpits continued to be used into the 20th century, as this photo of a sawpit from the Museum of English Rural Life shows.

One advantage of the English Oak (Quercus robur) is that it can produce massive curved timbers, known as "crucks". From the 13th century, carpenters were using crucks to build houses, with the long timbers rising from the ground and curving inwards to support the roofs. Cruck-timbered houses and farm buildings can be found throughout most of England, and they were still being built in the 19th century. The same curved timbers were used as the "knees", or frame supports, of ships like the Victory. Find out about the Victory here

Building an oak-timbered house

A timber-framed building was usually pre-fabricated in a carpenter's yard or "framing place". Here the carpenters cut the timber to size, and bored holes to take the oak or elm securing pegs. It was common to work with fresh rather than seasoned oak, for this was easier to cut. The timbers later dried out, often warping in the process. Athough this means that old houses are frequently crooked, their beams are tightly locked together.

Each beam was then given a carpenter's mark, based on Roman numerals, so that the builders would know how to put the structure together. You can still find carpenters' marks on the roof beams of many old buildings.

Timbers rot if their ends are placed directly in the ground, so the builders began by making a base for the walls. They laid down a massive oak beam, called a "sole plate", often on top of a stone foundation. The timber frames were then placed on the sole plate and hauled upright, by large numbers of men using ropes - a job called "rearing". The builders used ladders and scaffolding, made from poles lashed togather, with platforms of wattle (hazel strips woven into a mat). Standing on the scaffolding, the men hammered in the pegs to secure the timbers.

For two-storey structures, builders laid down long oak beams to support an upper floor. These often jutted out over the lower storey, creating more space for the upper room. Another advantage of an overlapping second storey was that the upper walls pushed down on the ends of the beams, preventing the floor from sagging under the weight of furniture.

Once the frame was complete, the builders could start work on the walls and the roof. The methods here had not changed since ancient times. The wall spaces between the timbers were filled with wattle and plastered with daub - a mixture of earth, cow dung, straw and water. Until the 17th century, the roof was usually thatched with straw. Thatchers laid bundles of straw on the roof, and pinned them in place with hairpin-shaped spars of hazel. Due to the risk of fire, from the 17th century tiles gradually replaced thatch in towns.

You can still find beautiful timber-framed buildings all over the country. The oak beams can still be seen on the outside walls, though the wattle and daub fillings have usually been replaced with brick.

• Shakespeare's Globe in London is a beautiful modern oak-timbered structure built using traditional methods - read more about the theatre, which opened in 1997, here.