A friend of mine is building a replacement wooden porch for a small
old cottage in central Scotland. It's about 800mm deep from the house
wall, and we are having a discussion on what to bed the bottom timbers
on.

It's a simple frame structure of two vertical 100mm square timbers on
each side and associated cross pieces so the vertical timbers will be
end grain to the bricks/concrete that the present porch is sitting
on. The timber is larch. One thinking is pads of hardwood -
something like oak.

Thanks for any ideas

Rob