Last summer (2004) I received the Timber Framers Guild (TFG) newsletter called Scantlings. I was reading it cover to cover as I normally do when I ran across the article "This Fall’s U.K. Tour: East Anglia".  The article spoke of touring the English countryside of Essex and Suffolk visiting historic timber frame barns, houses, churches, and guildhalls.  It would also include The UK Carpenters Fellowship gathering where among many great speakers would include Laurie Smith on the geometry of barns.  I had read one of Laurie Smith’s articles on geometry in his article "Geometrical Design in Historic Welsh Frames" in the Timber Framing magazine (by the TFG) and was immediately struck by it.  The tour sounded absolutely thrilling to me and I thought about how wonderful it would be to go. Then suddenly I realized "hey, I am my own boss I can decide that I need to go". 

I got all my projects to a point where I could take some time off and headed to England to meet up with the other tour members of the TFG.  We stayed in shared accommodations at a self-catered place called the Rare View. We mostly ate breakfast there and then headed out on our tour, starved for lunch, then ended with a dinner at a tavern. Despite what some people say about the English food I ate some of the best dinners and drank some of the best beer I ever had at these taverns.  Some of the highlights of the tour where the churches with the hammer beam angel roof truss, the huge tithe barns, the beautiful water and windmills, and the close studded guildhalls.  Our guides for this wirlwind tour were Will Beemer of the TFG and John Russell a timber framer, scholar, and speed car (bus) driver.  I saw and learned many interesting things and I would definitely do it again.  In the next few pages you can see my version of the tour.