Commissioned by Paul de Moncheau in 2005 for the BBC’s ‘Great Britons’ competition honouring Churchill, the Green Oak Carpentry Company crafted a timber sculpture. Erected in Westminster Great Hall, our team utilized a gantry to hoist sections, attaching them to vertical bolts for the ‘reciprocal’ assemblies. Illumination within cast enchanting shadows on the vast stone floor. Churchill’s notable quotes adorned brass plaques on beam tops. Despite the grandeur of the hammer-beam roof, the sculpture held its ground.

Westminster Hall boasts Northern Europe’s largest medieval timber roof. Spanning 20.7 by 73.2 meters (68 by 240 feet), it was Richard II’s 1393 commission, an architectural and carpentry masterpiece. Prefabricated in Alice Holt Forest near Farnham, beams were barge-transported via the river Wey, navigable from Farnham to Thames’s Weybridge junction.