History of old beams in mid 1800s house

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In our old workers cottage, we've got a beam in the living room with cutouts that have been filled with wooden blocks. On the same side of the beam under the floor upstairs, cutouts are present but have not been filled with blocks.
Has this beam had a previous life in another building potentially? Would be very interested to know more about reuse of timber in older buildings.
PXL_20230323_135618808.jpg
 
Also worth mentioning, it's flat on all sides but one, the side that isn't flat faces the fireplace, which I'd say is unusual as you'd expect that to face downwards, no?
 
It was expensive stuff. Reclaiming/recycling isn't new.
The "rough" side of the timber may have been in an unimportant room that has since ben knocked through?
 
In our old workers cottage, we've got a beam in the living room with cutouts that have been filled with wooden blocks. On the same side of the beam under the floor upstairs, cutouts are present but have not been filled with blocks.
Has this beam had a previous life in another building potentially? Would be very interested to know more about reuse of timber in older buildings.View attachment 298981
There’s no way of knowing , might be a repair , might be reused.
 
There’s no way of knowing , might be a repair , might be reused.
I wouldn't have said it was a repair, given how many cutouts there are - just interesting to think the beams in the house are even older than the property itself
 
Can you show us a shot of the full length of the beam/ceiling, showing the uneven side to the fireplace?
 
I think they did reuse them to save cost.
We have a beam in our loft that has a moulding on the top, and doesn't match the rest of the rough sawn 2x4s. Also the hearth in the upstairs main bedroom had an old rim of a car wheel and something else random in there as reinforcement! That is a 100 year old house.
Our builders carried on the tradition by using pallet wood from a delivery around the window openings:rolleyes:
 
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