Flitch of bacon custom claimed, he writes "... it is a little paradise, and the more like an antique one, as, by all I have said, the married couples seem to be driven out of it." Walpole concludes, "If you love a prospect, or bacon, you will certainly come hither." An anonymous humorous piece appeared in Joseph Addison's "Spectator" in 1714 purporting to explain the rarity of the flitch being awarded in terms of the poor quality of the applicants. The writer claims that the source is the "Register of Whichenovre-hall" but the truth is that the piece is almost certainly entirely fictitious. The
Flitch beam construction. Glulam beams were used to support the second floor and the roof. This allowed the appearance of wooden columns, while providing the necessary strength. The method for calculating the size of a flitch beam to be used in construction is straightforward, using the transformed-section method. The steel piece of the beams is imagined to be an equivalently flexible (although much thicker) piece of wood. This allows the elasticity of the entire beam to be calculated as if it were entirely made up of wood. There is modest business activity involving flitch beams with The Timber Research and Development Association