Like Unwrapping a Birthday Present at Tudor Hall

Suspense builds as the old roofing along the north "flank" of Tudor Hall is removed. Explanation below.

All photos in this post were taken at Tudor Hall on Thursday morning, September 10, 2009. Left click on the photos for bigger, better views. All photos and text by Dinah Faber.

Dinah says: Please forgive me for slipping into the first person in this post. It seemed the most natural way to write this particular post.

One of the things I've been hoping to observe as the old roof comes off and the new roof goes up at Tudor Hall is where the original section of the roof ends along the "flanks" of the house and where the newer section, built in Ella Mahoney's time (1879-1948), begins. As you will see in the following photos, my wish was granted on Thursday morning, September 10th.

Tah dah! The oldest section of the roof is revealed to be clearly different from the newer section. Now the question is did the original house as built by the Booth family actually end where the original roofing ends. Or was the original roofing sawed off and shortened for some reason when the extension to the back portion of the house was added? If the roof reflects where the original house ended, then Tudor Hall was originally even smaller than we thought and the floor plan upstairs would have been different than we imagined as well. It also means that Tudor Hall as originally built more closely resembled architect William Ranlett's original design. More research will be needed to answer these questions.

Also be sure and notice that the roofing on the forklift at the right of the photo that came off the extension is quite rusted while the older roofing that came off the original section of the roof is still quite shiny. Obviously, the original roofing was a quality product!


This close up of the older section of the roof clearly shows traces of the pattern in the roofing that was removed. Almost all of the original wood of the roof itself has remained in good condition and is not being replaced as the new roof goes up.


The north flank of the house was exposed for an hour or less. The crew quickly covered it with sheeting. Will it be another 160 years before it sees daylight again? Only time will tell if the new roofing is as durable as the old.