"dg" wrote in message
.. .
"G&M" wrote in message
...

"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.




Well the main problem is progressive and seasonal movement, which may not
only play havoc with the decorations of a modern house, but may not be
suitable to other materials in the structure which don't cope to well with
such movement.


Use lime mortar (as Grand Designs did tonight) and such problems go away.