"Tony Bryer" wrote in message
...

but generally would not advocate supporting
masonry walls off timber, even though this was done in past times.


Why on earth not ? In most old houses it is the stone lintels that fail,
not the wooden ones. The only time wooden ones fail is when there is an
unfixed source of damp causing decay. Our house has bits up to 400 years
old and a good mixture of oak, stone and modern lintels in the extension,
and I bet I know which bits will still be intact in another couple of
hundred years.