TREE-RING ANALYSIS OF TIMBERS FROM GUNTONS FARMHOUSE, GARVESTONE, NORFOLK
Author(s): Dr Martin Bridge
The stylistic evidence for the clasped purlin and queen strut, windbraced roof suggests a late sixteenth-century date for present building, this being supported by documantary evidence that the house was occupied in AD 1597. There was some uncertainity as to whether the timber-framed staircase, forming a rear external unit, was coeval with the roof. The dendrochronological evidence supports the interpretation that the staircase and roof are indeed broadly contemporaneous. If taken as two groups of timbers, the roof timbers were most likely felled in the period AD 1579-97 and the staircase timbers in the period AD 1578-1609. Although none of the samples retained the sapwood-bark boundary, this was present on several timbers at the time of sampling, and little wood was lost during coring. It is therefore most likely that the roof and staircase were constructed in the earlier parts of the quoted ranges. The lack of complete sapwood and bark do not make it possible to tell whether the two groups of timbers are exactly contemporaneous, although this seems a likely scenario.
- Report Number:
- 37/2001
- Series:
- CfA Reports
- Pages:
- 10
- Keywords:
- Dendrochronology Standing Building
