TREE-RING ANALYSIS OF TIMBERS FROM HARDWICK OLD HALL, DOE LEA, NEAR CHESTERFIELD, DERBYSHIRE
Author(s): Robert Howard, R R Laxton, Cliff Litton
One hundred and five samples with a wide-ranging distribution within Hardwick Old Hall were obtained for tree-ring analysis. Ninety-one of these samples were measured of which eighty-six were analysed. This analysis produced six site sequences of which three were dated. The main site chronology consists of thirty-nine samples with 216 rings spanning the period AD 1375 - AD 1590. The second chronology is made up of five samples, with ninety-eight rings spanning AD 1481 - AD 1578. A third site chronology has two samples with 103 rings spanning AD 1484 - AD 1586. Four individual samples were also dated. Three other site chronologies, accounting for 16 samples, remain undated. Twenty measured samples remain ungrouped and undated. The majority of timbers sampled appear to have been felled over a short period in the late sixteenth-century especially for the construction of the Hall. Work appears to have proceeded in all areas simultaneously, there being no clear evidence on dendrochronological grounds for the separate phasing of different parts. It is known from documentary sources that work on the Old Hall was begun in AD 1583 and was largely completed by the time construction was suspended in AD 1590 when work began on the New Hall. Tree-ring analysis appears to be entirely consistent with such an interpretation of the documents. From the interpretation of the sapwood it would appear that some timbers used in the late sixteenth-century construction of the Old Hall were reused, having originally been felled in the very late fifteenth to very early sixteenth centuries. It is possible that these reused timbers were original to the earlier minor manor house, which is known to have existed on the site, and to have been incorporated into the Old Hall.
- Report Number:
- 56/2002
- Series:
- CfA Reports
- Pages:
- 49
- Keywords:
- Dendrochronology Standing Building
