The Xylodom building is a tribute to wood and timber design. It's also a showcase for McConnel Wood Products, specialists in homegrown and European hardwoods, and for the work of cabinet makers and woodworkers.

Enter through the main or veranda door, or take a walk in the countryside.

The Xylodom Belfrey is based on a 13th century bell tower in Herefordshire, England. If you look closely, you'll see that it tapers slightly toward the top. This shape is naturally stable, but the structural strength is also dependent on close scissor bracing in the wall, a tradition established for English towers circa 1300.

The tower room design is based on the polygonal towers of the fortress town of Pless in Russia, built in 1410 by order of the Grand Duke of Moscow as protection against the Mongols. These timber towers influenced the development of folk architecture in Russia.

The Tower Roof.The Xylodom is a building that draws on many different architectural and design traditions. The actual structure of the tower roof was built using an oriental technique involving reciprocating beams as found in Kazuhiro Ishii's puppet theatre in Siewa, Japan. Here they're made from fresh sawn Scottish, Norway spruce.

The tower room supports, made of fresh sawn oak, are reminiscent of those at Stokesay Castle in Shropshire, which was built in the late 13th century. There, the timber storey at the top of the North Tower consisted of a jettied timber framework projecting over the masonry and supported by timber braces on stone corbels.

These roof lights are similar in style to those on the steep-roofed buildings of medieval Baltic ports, or as seen in the Durer etchings.

All the main framing for the roof lights is made from fresh sawn European oak.

These oak windows are just like the windows of a renovated oak-frame French house in Grolejac on the Dordogne. All the frames are made of European oak.

The West Wing Veranda is reminiscent of the lean-too structures on houses in the US and Australia that provide shade, shelter and a quiet place to relax. In Australia, they were typically constructed from cypress and hoop-pine, in the US Oregon pine. Here the veranda is made from oak, with larch decking.

These Turned Pillars were inspired by those in the church of Saints Peter and Paul in Puchuga on the Northern Dvina, Russia, which was built in 1788.

They have been turned from large Douglas fir logs grown in Dumfries and Galloway.

The Style of This End Window is beloved by post modernist and Georgian alike.

This particular example is taken from an American house that was built by Tedd Benson on the East Coast of the US.

This construction is a taboo; a gazebo on stilts with a staircase. The arch that forms the roof of the taboo is from a 1987 Imre Makovecz design for a window in Paks Cathedral, Hungary. Oak bends are used to create this effect, scarfed onto the uprights.

The Great Hall Doors are similar in design to those found in many a medieval castle. This is French in character, with the timber sawn in trapezoidal fashion.

The door is held together with nails, clinched on the other side of the door. The doors are made from European oak, sourced in Scotland.

The Main Frame of this building is constructed from round poles. Young plantation grown Sitka Spruce is bent to form a series of boat-like structures that are used to support the roof. This technique was developed at Hooke Park, England, and has been further modified by people like Charles Gulland and Sam Barlow in Scotland.

These Sweeping Spires are inspired by Esterling's entrance pavilion at a Dutch Safari park, designed by Ton van de Ven. The original design was influenced by African tribal huts and was thatched. Here it is shingled in chestnut, but it could also be done in oak.

The Body of the Xylodom has had two primary influences. These are Bart Prince's Corona del Mar, in California and Arthur Dyson's Lenconi Residence also in California.

Both of these architects use Cedar shingles to create complex curves. The same could be done in oak or even, perhaps, European larch.

Visit The Timber Yard and find out more about the sawn timber that we supply for construction, interiors, furniture and cabinet making, windmills, guitars and more. Read all about us.