"What else could you do?" - John David, Master Mason Emeritus on York Minster's 1984 Fire

[@zygmuntthecacaokakistocrat6589]

When I was 18 & 19, in 1985, I was visiting family in Yorkshire (from Australia: I emigrated with my parents when I was 3) a few months after the fire, and my uncle was one of the carpenters in the firm tasked with replicating the destroyed beams and rafters of the roof of the transept. He knew I was doing a cabinetmaking apprenticeship in Australia, so asked his boss, Geoff Brayshaw, if I could come to their yard and help with making the new roof. I spent 3 weeks marking and sawing & fitting HUGE joints in framing timbers of 100+ year old oak, made into the new beams, working sometimes to drawings copied from 18th & 19th century restorers' drawings in crayon on boards, discovered in storerooms in adjoining buildings. Either that, or getting extremely sooty measuring and replicating the burnt and shattered beams that could be rescued (what is an apprentice for, after all?). We used modern beam saws and morticers for some, but others, especially at angles, we had to cut like the original makers would have cut them, with hand (electric drill-powered) augers and huge framing slicks (specialised heavy chisels). My feet and inches maths improved in leaps and bounds! (& yes I did carve my initials where no-one will ever see them, probably, unless they look). Unfortunately I couldn't stay for the installation of the trusses that I had a small part in making (I had to get back to Melbourne, making dining chairs and 'French farmhouse'-style refectory tables: chunky in themselves, but delicate in comparison with the 18" x 6" timbers I had been working with) , but I have photos showing the installation process from Uncle Rob and his workmates. A great learning experience.

[@Geoplanetjane]

Very much like what the crafts workers restoring Notre Dame de Paris are doing.