Oak framed church roof - L'Eglise Saint Giron

[Dr.Al]

We're currently staying in a small town called Monein, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. This is the local church, L'Eglise Saint Giron, built between 1464 and 1530:



Assuming I've remembered the figures correctly, the main church building is 13 metres high. The roof structure (not including the tower) is 18 metres high!

View from the opposite side:



Inside, it looks very impressive: I'm sure I've been in less impressive cathedrals:



However, what marks this church out as being remarkable is the oak-framed roof structure:



In the main church building, they have some models of the timber frame structures, firstly for the tower:



and then for the main body of the roof:



That first photo of the roof structure I posted above is the bottom-right section of the latter model. The smaller bottom-left section looks like this (and, for a sense of scale, even this smaller section is taller than I am):



This is the bit in between the two:



Another model, showing (not very clearly, sorry), the French names for the joints:



They call this joint "Trait de Jupiter" (apparently because it looks like a lightning bolt):



Not sure what they call this one:



Some of the joints had been reinforced with nuts & bolts or with steel straps during a restoration of the church in the late '90s, but many were

I took some photos of all the information signs and fed them through google translate. Here are a subset of them (I think you can click on them for a bigger view, or right-click and open in new tab):







and some more photos of the roof to finish the post off:

 

[Mike G]

Yep, that's an impressive roof, Al. First thing I do in any church I visit is to look up at the roof......

However, it's actually fairly typical. Many if not most larger churches (plus cathedrals, of course) in Europe have a big oak-framed roof like that. The details will vary, but the principle remains the same. This one strikes me as slightly unusual in having relatively small scantling sizes (ie it's made of small section wood). Many churches have massive timbers in their principle frames/ trusses, and then much smaller bits in their secondary "infill" timbers. In some ways this roof seems more like a modern house roof, with lots and lots of bits of relatively small pieces of wood, when compared with an ancient roof which has huge timbers widely spaced, with small bits in between.

 

[AndyP]

If you are into 15th century wooden churches and ever in this neck of the woods check out L’eglise St Catherine in Honfleur.
I can’t find the images I took last time I was there.
This will give you a flavour.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/eglise-sainte-catherine

 

[Cabinetman]

Thanks Al, most impressive and informative, what I find unusual is the stone vaulting forming the ceiling.
My favourite roof tour is still Lincoln Cathedral though, tallest building in the world for a very long time until the tower blew down, from memory about 250 feet of tower falling over, it must have been terrifying at the time.

 

[JamesHow]

I do love oak. French oak seems straighter and easier to work than British oak being further south??

 

[AndyP]

Straighter is probably as a result of centuries of properly managed forests rather than location

 

[Cabinetman]

I do love oak. French oak seems straighter and easier to work than British oak being further south??

Just beat me to it, the French and Germans grow Oak as a crop, it’s managed to grow tall and straight without low branches, but if you want interesting grain or even Pippy or Character grades English hedgerow Oak is unbeatable.