Tree-Ring Analysis of Timbers from Staircase House, (30A & 31 Market Place), Stockport, Greater Manchester
Author(s): Robert Howard, R R Laxton, Cliff Litton
Fifty-one samples were obtained from within this building of which forty-three were analysed in conjunction with approximately 90 other samples obtained by other Laboratories during previous programmes of dating. This combined analysis produced four site sequences. The first sequence, which included twenty-three newly measured samples, has 168 rings and spans AD 1489 - AD 1656. Interpretation of the sapwood indicates that two phases of felling are represented, the first in AD 1612 - 18, the second in AD 1652 -56. The second sequence consists of three new samples having 180 rings spanning AD 1069 - AD 1248. It is unlikely that these timbers were felled before AD 1263, and they probably represent reused material. The third sequence also includes three new samples and indicates timber felled in AD 1459, AD 1536, and between AD 1591 to AD 1616. The fourth sequence contains four new samples. Although 101 rings long, it cannot be dated. This programme of analysis confirms the use of probable late-thirteenth or early-fourteenth century timber, a mid fifteenth-century phase of building, the use of timber felled in the mid-sixteenth century, and the extensive early seventeenth-century redevelopment. This analysis, however, also shows a hitherto undated mid seventeenth-century phase of felling.
- Report Number:
- 12/2003
- Series:
- CfA Reports
- Pages:
- 31
- Keywords:
- Dendrochronology Standing Building
