SDO14408 - Sherborne House, Newland, Sherborne, Dorset. Tree-Ring Analysis of Timbers from the Tudor Wing

‘A small number of samples were obtained from the ‘Tudor Wing’ of Sherborne House. The ring series from two heavily moulded ceiling beams were dated, one of which retained the heartwood-sapwood boundary, giving a likely felling date range for these timbers of AD 1468–1500. A further four timbers; three tiebeams and an unmoulded ceiling beam, were also dated. One tiebeam retained complete sapwood, and was found to have come from a tree felled in spring AD 1671, and the likely felling date ranges for the other tiebeams and the unmoulded ceiling beam give likely felling date ranges that would suggest these timbers form a single batch, most likely felled at the same time, or within a few years of each other. This suggests that this wing used ceiling timbers from trees felled in the period AD 1468–1500, but it is not clear whether this represents the date of the primary construction of this wing, or whether these timbers were perhaps reused. The west-end ground-floor ceiling, and the tiebeams, were inserted in AD 1671 or very soon thereafter.’