The Rural Voice, 1993-08, Page 38"As long as I can
remember, I have
been interested in
historic buildings,"
says Scott Murray,
owner of Thistlewood
Timber Frame Homes in Markdale,
in central Grey County. "Even in
school, my projects had to do with
wood and building!"
Murray worked for a while at the
Agricultural Museum in Milton, as
part of a crew that located historic
buildings for the Museum. "Part of
our work was dis-
mantling and moving
and rebuilding these
old structures," he
states. "We also had
to make new pieces to
replace deteriorated
sections or cut new
timbers and build
sections from scratch.
All that taught me a
lot about timber -
framing!"
Murray and his
wife Lynne came up
to Grey County to
visit his parents at
their cottage and fell
in love with the area.
They moved up in
1982 and started the
company, Thistle -
wood Timber Frame
Homes, located just
off Highway 10 north
of Markdale.
Scott Murray is
also the current presi-
dent of the Timber
Framers Guild of
North America, a
group that came into
existence in 1984 to
promote the art of
umber framing. Mur-
ray was a representa-
tive of the Canadian
government at a trade
show in Tokyo, Japan,
in 1992. The group
spent two weeks Paul Ross does final
Reviving an old tradition
Scott Murray uses old skills to create modern
timber frame houses
By Cathy Laird
exchanging product information and
promoting different products.
As president of the Timber
Framers Guild, Murray and other
board members travelled to Windsor
Castle in England at the time of the
fire damage to offer assistance.
"Timber framing is the reason I got to
go to Japan,
England, and
through a lot of
the United
States," he
adds.
The Timber Framers Guild
donated goods and time and labour to
construct a framed pedestrian bridge
over the Speed River in Guelph this
past summer. "We got together for
our annual meeting in Guelph and
donated our talents and time to pro-
mote our craft," says Murray. He
was the project
manager.
There are
approximately
800 individual
members in The
Guild, with 150
different compa-
nies represented
and having
memberships
also. Three
hundred framers
worked on the
Speed River
Bridge.
The bridge
was constructed
out of Douglas
fir timbers from
British Colum-
bia. The struc-
ture was assem-
bled on the
ground and then
lifted into place
by two large
cranes. The tim-
ber frame bridge
was built like
the framework
inside old barns,
having posts,
beams and bra-
ces, put together
with wooden
pegs. The fram-
ing was comple-
ted in five days.
In the past, the
Timber Framers
34 THE RURAL VOICE
cutting on a timber with a chisel.