"Jethro_uk" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 22 Apr 2019 16:31:24 +0100, charles wrote:

In article ,
Jethro_uk wrote:
On Mon, 22 Apr 2019 12:52:18 +0100, charles wrote:

In article ,
wrote:
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.

At Balmoral, a few years ago, a new wood was planted and the factor
(land agent) said harvesting would happen in about 500 year's time.

Assuming it's been pollarded (?) and attended to correctly ???

pollarding oaks? I don't think so.

Hence the "?". But I'm sure there's more to providing the
timber suitable for such buildings (or the old oak built
ships) than leaving a few acres untouched for centuries.

Yes, its mostly done by thinning.

So my point stands. If you lose that skill, you've lost the timber.

No skill involved with thinning and easy to document how to do that.