TREE-RING ANALYSIS OF TIMBERS FROM THE PRESBYTERY ROOF, ABBEY CHURCH OF ST ALBAN'S, ST ALBANS, HERTFORDSHIRE (PART III)
Author(s): Robert Howard, R R Laxton, Cliff Litton
In this third programme of dating all eighty-two samples obtained from the roof, ceiling, and decorative shields of the Presbytery of St Alban's Cathedral, were analysed by tree-ring dating. This analysis produced five site chronologies, all of which supercede earlier site chronologies of the previous two reports. The first site chronology, STACSQ01, is made up of twenty-five samples, all from the in-fill ceiling board. This site chronology has 215 rings spanning the period AD 1050-AD 1264. It is estimated that the timbers represented have a felling date in the range AD 1272-88, and are of north European origin. The second site chronology, STACSQ02, consists of 24 samples from the wall-posts, struts and ribs of the ceiling structure, its 113 rings spanning AD 1151-AD 1263. It is estimated that these timbers have a felling date in the range AD 1273-98. These timbers would appear to be from some English woodland source. Two samples from above ceiling beams, representing probably re-used timbers, go to make up site chronology STACSQ03. This has 85 rings spanning the period AD 969-AD 1053. It is estimated the trees represented by these samples have a felling date in the range AD 1067-92. Data from two out of six decorative shields combine to form a fourth site chronology, STACSQ04, having 68 rings spanning the period AD 1302-AD 1369. Neither sample has the heartwood/sapwood boundary and it is thus not possible to give an accurate felling date. However, it is unlikely to be before AD 1384, not in the seventeenth-century as once believed. Tree-ring dating combined with other evidence suggests a felling date somewhere between these two. A fifth site chronology is made up of samples from six "bearer beams". STACSQ05 has 65 rings but it cannot be dated. It is thus likely that the entire Presbytery roof is of a single, late thirteenth-century, phase of construction, largely of the time of Abbot Roger de Norton. A very small amount of material, possibly time of Abbot Paul de Caen, has been reused in the roof.
- Report Number:
- 53/2002
- Series:
- CfA Reports
- Pages:
- 38
- Keywords:
- Dendrochronology Standing Building
