The front of the house is half timbered with a timber frame on the first floor.  1930s semi detached house builders adopted this feature along with many other Edwardian features, however this frame is structural and holds the roof up.

The timber frame has been poorly maintained and repairs like replacement lead on the snug bay window have caused issues.  I’ve been removing the paint to assess the condition of the wood.  The layers of modern gloss paint had cracked and were allowing water in.   Of course the paint was waterproof so the water couldn’t get out again.

The wood appears to be a slow grown softwood similar to Scandinavian redwood.  The finish is generally very well preserved without UV damage which suggests it was painted from new.

The first 3 coats of paint were linseed which has preserved the wood perfectly under the later coats of horrid cracking modern paints.

Photos of the original paint finish are only available in black and white.  Most of the original paint has been stripped previously, but there is some left higher up the building. The white was the original finish to the windows.  It was a linseed oil paint with a lead pigment.  The next coat was green.

The rest of the timber was also re-painted green but below that is a very thin mid brown coating with the grain of the wood visible through the pigment.  Below that (and visible through the brown) are brush marks and I wonder if they aren’t a faux wood grain.  It is possible the original finish was linseed paint with a brown pigment and a wood grain effect to make the softwood look like hardwood.

The timber frame isn’t as bad as I feared.   In many places what looked like rot turned out only to be cracking and peeling gloss paint.

Figuring out how to re-finish the wood will be a challenge.   The Edwardians left the lime render (which turned out to be cement) unpainted which would have aided drying of the wood.  I can’t remove the modern waterproof paint from the render without also removing the rough cast pebble finish.  I’m guessing a linseed oil based finish to the wood, maybe with some pigment to keep the UV out will be the answer.