TREE-RING ANALYSIS OF TIMBERS FROM HALTON CASTLE, NEAR CORBRIDGE, NORTHUMBERLAND
Author(s): Robert Howard, R R Laxton, Cliff Litton
Sixteen samples were obtained from three potential roof phases of the north range of Halton Castle, a potential early fourteenth-century phase, a possible late medieval phase and a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century phase. Only twelve of these samples were analysed, the remaining four samples having too few rings. This analysis produced two site chronologies. The first site chronology, consisting of eight samples all from the suggested sixteenth- or seventeenth-century phase, has 164 rings spanning the period AD 1396 - AD 1559. Interpretation of the sapwood would indicate that all such timbers were felled in AD 1559. A second site chronology consisting of three samples from the possible late medieval phase has 79 rings. This site chronology could not be dated. The remaining single sample, from the potential early fourteenth-century phase, could not be dated either. The samples from two of the three potential phases have not been dated by dendrochronology. The fact that the three groups of samples fail to cross-match with each other lends some support, albeit weak, to the archaeological interpretation. Certainly the results do not contradict it.
- Report Number:
- 96/2001
- Series:
- CfA Reports
- Pages:
- 17
- Keywords:
- Dendrochronology Standing Building
