A Church within a Church – A Building within a Building

 

Timber House Frame with Mortise and Tenon Joints

 



 

Wooden Floor Beam in the Cathedral

We have all heard this description of the Cathedral but we are now starting to see exactly what this means.  The Cathedral is two separate buildings each with its own unique structure that share a foundation.  The wooden structure consists of a timber frame made up of large wooden beams that run in the floor, in the walls, up the columns and into the roof.  These large beams, some measuring as much as 12” x 12” are joined together mostly using mortise and tenon joints.  This old method of joining wooden beams is done by cutting out or mortising a hole in one beam and cutting down part of the other beam to fit into that hole.  The parts are pinned together with wooden rods or dowels that pass through both pieces.  This timber frame is essentially the skeleton of the Cathedral.  It is to this frame that the wooden pitch pine interior paneling is fastened. 

 

 

Wooden Wall Beams and Outer Wall Brick lining

 

Wood Columns

 

Wooden Beams in the Roof

 

The exterior walls consist of cut stone walls that have an inner brick lining.  These walls run from the foundation outer walls all the way up to the parapets that surround the roof.  The only other stone structures in the Cathedral were the aisles stone slabs that rested on the inner foundation walls and on some of the wooden floor beams. 

We can now see the idea behind the engineering.  The outer stone walls shielded the wooden structure in times of hurricanes.  The same walls would then be encouraged to fall outwards in the event of a major earthquake.  This would make their repair/replacement relatively easy as the inner building remained intact.  We are using this feature in our restoration plans.  We are restoring the inner wooden building first.  After that is finished we can then restore the outer building while we worship within.

 

Parapet Wall Showing Inner Bricks