Fortunately, dendrochronological work on deadwood from the Old Oaks of Dalkeith Park (see photo) is available to provide the anchor in time, ie the recent end of the new oak reference chronology to be produced by SESOD, with Dalkeith data spanning AD1592-2010. However, only a few trees are older than 1700, and more data from 1700 and earlier is sought.

The project director, Coralie Mills is requesting the help of those who know of any buildings or structures in SE Scotland with old timber which may potentially meet the objectives of SESOD. Coralie can be contacted at coralie.mills@dendrochronicle.co.uk

Assessment visits will be undertaken to the most likely candidates in 2018-19, the first year of the 3-year project. SESOD will concentrate on locating, sampling and analysing oak timbers from selected historic buildings and structures in the Scottish Borders, the Lothians and Edinburgh, in sites where the timber stands a good chance of pre-dating 1700 and being native rather than imported. This will be easiest to predict in medieval buildings built before the great surge in imported timber to the eastern central belt from around 1450. However, away from the coast and where transport was more difficult, we would expect native timber to continue to be used in the late- and post-medieval periods. This was found to be the case at a townhouse on the High Street in Jedburgh which contained native oak felled in AD1667 (see photo). It was only possible to date it by comparison with oak chronologies from the north of England, where local oak was used well into the post-medieval period. Creation of an oak reference chronology for South East Scotland aims to enhance the ‘date-ability’ of historic oak timbers in this region.

SESOD will run over three years, from 2018/19, with archaeology grant support from HES, and partnership working with a range of bodies, including Archaeology Scotland and the Forestry Commission Scotland on outreach and educational aspects. It also has the valuable support of the council archaeologists in the region.

This article first appeared in the Archaeology Scotland magazine, Issue 32, Summer 2018.

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Dendrochronolgical analysis of single oak timber, a second floor joist, from St Nicholas Church Tower in Anstruther, was recently undertaken on behalf of the Anstruther Improvements Association. The analysis was successful in providing both a date and a provenance for the timber: the date-span of the sample was AD 1397-1507 and a southern Scandinavian source was indicated for the timber, most probably from Southern Norway. The final ring was at the bark edge and had both spring and summer wood present, so the tree was felled somewhere between late summer of AD 1507 and before the spring of AD 1508, and was probably squared at source.

There was a thriving Norwegian timber export trade, especially to the Scottish east coast ports, in the late medieval period. The transportation time need not be long, with the Norwegian coast only a few days sail away, and with the old Anstruther harbour immediately adjacent to the church, as can be seen in the photo.  There is no evidence of timber re-use and the result indicates a construction date in or not long after AD1508.

St Nicholas Tower is part of a complex of historic buildings, standing on an even earlier church site, being conserved and put to excellent community use thanks to the hard work of the Anstruther Improvements Assciation. More information about the AIA’s activities and events can be found here

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A 2000 year tree-ring chronology for native pine in Scotland: that is the exciting objective of the NERC-funded SCOT2K Project led by Dr Rob Wilson at the University of St Andrews. I am delighted to have been appointed as a part-time Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews to work on this 3-year project which has just gone live.I shall be continuing my freelance work in Dendrochronicle alongside this part-time post.  In SCOT2K I’ll be working with Rob and his team at St Andrews, and with collaborators in other institutions, on extending native Scots pine dendrochronological coverage to the last two millennia for Scotland – for climate reconstruction & cultural heritage objectives. I shall be focussing on obtaining native pine timber samples from Scotland’s built heritage, especially in the pine heartlands, to augment periods when the ‘natural’ tree record is thin due to historic woodland exploitation. An annually resolved 2000 year climate record for Scotland will have much to offer many fields of interest including archaeology, history and environmental science.

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Delighted to have been invited to speak about dendrochronology in the Scottish cultural sphere for the 36th series of the Architectural Conservation Masterclasses, University of Edinburgh. Details and bookings for all the lectures in the 2013 programme through this link http://sites.ace.ed.ac.uk/sccsmasterclass/

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