jan 1, 1573 - cruck

Description:

A curved piece of timber, one of a roughly matched pair, or two sawn from one tree. Together they formed a rough arch and two pairs at a distance supported the ridge timber of a building. In the OED the evidence for this term is late and appears under the headwords crock, crook and cruck. The Yorkshire examples are therefore important: 1352 ‘Margery del Milne is amerced 6d for felling trees … 40d for selling <i>6 crokke</i>s’, Holmfirth (WCR6/105); 1380 ‘will build anew one grange of 6 posts or of six <i>crokkes</i>’, Yeadon (SW65); 1454 ‘laying great stones under the foot of the <i>Crokk</i>’, Airton (Morkill239); 1509 <i>bield … a house of vj crokkys</i>, South Crosland (WBD/2/26). Frequent references continue through the sixteenth century: 1573 <i>to find great tymber and all other woode needful for the buildynge of one house of thre pare of crockes of whyte woode</i>, Kilnsey (MD247).

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