On Sunday, 21 April 2019 09:33:32 UTC+1, mm0fmf wrote:
I visited the roof space on Lincoln Cathedral a few years. The tour cost
£3 and was possibly the best £3 ever spent. Similar general age to Notre
Dame again with a wooden framed roof made from huge oak beams. To ensure
they have suitable beams for renovation work, they have unused beams
ageing in the roof space ready. They've been buying them whenever they
had money and such wood was available. Of course a fire in the roof
space would destroy their own spares too.

Apparently an Oxford college was looking round for some replacement oak beams when it discovered it owned a small woodland somewhere and there were some 500-year-old trees that had been planted when the college was built, for that purpose.

That's planning ahead.

Owain