I live near a beach and on one of my regular walks I have just found a large very old looking timber stump with rudimentary holes some of which have wooden pegs which I believe are ? Treenails

When did treenailing cease in boatbuilding?

timber framed houses used and still use wooden pegs, not heard of it in boatbuilding, then again i’ve never built a boat

I’ve built and restored wooden boats and timber frame buildings and still do when the opportunity arises and as spc above quite correctly says, wooden pegs are used in timber framing. I’ve never come across a boat where pegs are used to fasten structural bits together, although wooden pins were used for numerous other purposes.

Older sailing vessels would have belay pins, typically made of wood. These would be used to tie or secure the various bits of standing rigging and running rigging, such as the halyards and sheets or the ropes that pull up and control the sails. Usually, these belay pins would be attached by hammering them through a hole in and to the Bulwarks, which themselves ran fore and aft along the sides of the boat (attached to the Gunwhales). So a series of holes would be seen in this part of the boat.

If you can also see a mortice socket in the timber, through which the holes go through, then it is more than likely a bit of timber from a house.

If you can also see a mortice socket in the timber, through which the holes go through, then it is more than likely a bit of timber from a house

round here i’ve often heard people say that the timbers in their house were old ships timbers (a common misconception), despite the fact that we are over 50 miles from the nearest coast. old timbers were always saved from previous dwellings to form structural elements to newer buildings as timber was in short supply and it was labour intensive to produce sawn timber in usable lengths

I’m pretty sure that traditionally built Northumbrian Cobles included ‘wooden nails’ within the core structure. I think there’s still one or two boat builders on the north east Coast still making them in accordance with the old ways!