Tree-Ring Analysis of Timbers from Clifton Hall Tower, Clifton, Near Penrith, Cumbria
Author(s): Alison Arnold, Robert Howard, Cliff Litton
Seventeen core sampled were obtained from this building. Analysis of these produced two dated site chronologies, and dated one sample individually. The first site chronology, CHTASQ01, contains five samples of overall length 86 rings, dated as spanning AD 1655 to AD 1740. The second site chronology, CHTASQ02, contains three samples and is 84 rings long, these dated as spanning AD 1440 to AD 1561. The individually dated sample spans AD 1408 - 1469. Interpretation of the sapwood would suggest more than one phase of felling. The earliest sample, from a floor-frame, is estimated to have a felling date in the range AD 1543 - 78. Two other timbers, from the roof, may have been felled at about the same time, but it is equally possible they are later. The latest phase is represented by five samples from the roof, indicating a felling of AD 1740. The individually dated timber is unlikely to have been felled before AD 1484. It would thus appear that at least one mid sixteenth-century timber from the floor frame could be original, but, apart from one, none of the dated timbers in the roof are, these mostly being eighteenth-century replacements, but including some timber felled earlier.
- Report Number:
- 23/2003
- Series:
- CfA Reports
- Pages:
- 18
- Keywords:
- Dendrochronology Standing Building
