Scientific Dating

Tree-ring analysis of timbers from two roofs, a first-floor ceiling, and an ex situ cellar joist, resulting in the successful dating of 29 samples

Summarises dendrochronological investigation of timbers of a wreck identified as the London, located underwater in the Thames Estuary off Southend.

Timbers from the roofs and floors of the L-shaped building on the front of this property were sampled. Results were later than the expected date.

Samples were taken from 21 of the various timber elements of the mill, results included evidence of a previously unknown rebuilding phase.

Showed that the main ceiling beams of the Central Tower forming the ground-floor ceiling are all original, while its consoles are early 17th century.

Results showed a significant amount of timber felled in the first half of the 17th century, at odds with the expected late-16th century-date.

An original set of samples taken in 2004 were re-assessed, and an additional 21 timbers were sampled, along with one measured by digital photography.

Results suggest building works at the south wing in the last decades of the 16th century, building works occurred in the central wing a century later.

Results show all the sampled timbers are late 15th century; whereas the expected dating based on stylistic and documentary grounds was 16th century.

24 of the 99 sampled timbers from the large multi-phase building have now been dated by ring-width dendrochronology and radiocarbon wiggle-matching.

The chronology is from AD 1557 to 1726; the roofs of the extant hall range and west range were replaced in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

Analysis of samples from timbers representing two phases of roofs within the nave and the chancel, from the bell-cote and from the nave wall.