TREE-RING ANALYSIS OF TIMBERS FROM THE ISACC LORD COMPLEX, IPSWICH, SUFFOLK
Author(s): Dr Martin Bridge
This complex of buildings includes a merchant's house on the road frontage with several phases of warehousing behind, running down to the River Orwell. Range 1 (80 Fore Street) is stylistically dated to the late-fifteenth or early-sixteenth centuries. A single timber from this range yielded an earlier than expected felling-date period of AD 1418 - 1449. If this single timber is representative of the date for the whole range, the dendrochronological evidence suggests that this is the earliest extant building on the site. This range was cut through to make a carriageway, probably at the same time as range 2 was constructed. Range 2 (80A Fore Street) of the merchant's house was constructed from timbers felled in the spring of AD 1636, confirming the date carved into a gable bressumer. The merchant's house truncates a two-storey building to the rear (range 3), which could not be dated dendrochronologically, but must predate range 2, and probably post-dates range 4. A 'crossway' warehouse (range 4), previously thought to be the earliest extant building on the site, yielded several dated samples, but only one with sapwood. The tree supplying this timber was felled in AD 1587, the other four dated timbers possibly representing a group felled in AD 1587, the other four dated timbers possibly representing a group felled a few decades earlier.
- Report Number:
- 49/1999
- Series:
- AML Reports (New Series)
- Pages:
- 18
- Keywords:
- Dendrochronology Standing Building
