The Charterhouse Priory of St Anne, London Road, Coventry, Warwickshire, Tree-ring Analysis and Radiocarbon Wiggle-Matching of Oak and Elm Timbers
Author(s): Alison Arnold, Robert Howard, Cathy Tyers, A Bayliss, Silvia Bollhalder, Michael Dee, Sanne Palstra, Lukas Wacker
Dendrochronological analysis was undertaken on 79 of the 86 oak core and crosssectional slice samples and on seven of the eight elm core samples obtained from this building. This analysis produced three dated oak site chronologies, accounting for 47 samples, with another four oak samples being dated individually. A further two oak site chronologies, respectively comprising the ring series from two and three samples, and an elm site chronology of two samples, could not be dated. The remaining ungrouped individual oak and elm samples could also not be dated by ring-width dendrochronology. Radiocarbon wiggle-matching was undertaken on the core from one further oak timber. The combined ring-width dendrochronology and radiocarbon wiggle-matching indicate that the majority of the dated oak timbers were derived from trees felled at various times in the fifteenth century or trees felled in the sixteenth century, with most of the latter probably being felled in a single felling episode in the mid-AD 1550s. This mid sixteenth-century felling episode represents a major refurbishment of the Charterhouse which is likely to have followed shortly after felling and hence in the latter half of the AD 1550s. The earlier timbers are thought to have been incorporated into the structure during this refurbishment and hence represent reused or reset timbers. It remains a possibility that a small number of dated timbers could have been felled in the fourteenth century and that a small number of timbers, whilst having been felled in the sixteenth century, could predate the main mid sixteenth-century episode.
- Report Number:
- 259/2020
- Series:
- Research Report
- Pages:
- 115
- Keywords:
- Dendrochronology Radiocarbon Dating Standing Building Wiggle-Match
