Norfolk Historic Buildings Group

PROJECTS

NEW BUCKENHAM

We chose to study the historic buildings of New Buckenham as our first major research project. This choice was prompted by the inherent historic interest of the village plus the fact that having one of our members, Paul Rutledge, as the local historian meant that the documentary history of the houses has already been researched to a very high level.

New Buckenham, Market Cross.

New Buckenham, King Street.

To back up the research into documents and the surveys of standing buildings we have carried out, we arranged for a tree-ring dating (dendrochronology) survey to be carried out by Ian Tyers of Sheffield University. This was financed by the National Heritage Lottery Fund.

In February we took Ian into over twenty houses and from those he selected the few that were most likely to produce useful dates and in May we spent four days with him as he took samples from the timbers, a highly skilled and at times nerve-racking process. If one is lucky the rings will reveal a range of years giving a rough date for the felling of the tree and the building of the house. When a dendro date is discovered for a house it can back up the documentary and structural information to turn the building into a really effective focus for explaining the social and economic conditions of how people lived and worked in the village at the time it was built. The full results of our research will be published in the next issue of the NHBG Journal which will appear in Spring next year, 2005.

Ian Tyers taking samples.

On rare and very fortunate occasions the timber will yield the precise year and season of that year when it was cut down. It is therefore particularly gratifying that four out of the five dates obtained for houses sampled by Ian Tyers are precise year dates of this type.

Three of the houses sampled would yield no date because they were built, like most of the timber-framed buildings in New Buckenham, from oaks which had been grown fast and used young, thus having few growth rings.

All of these dates reinforce the stylistic evidence found in the actual buildings and they should enable us to learn lessons about the other houses in New Buckenham and in the countryside around with a new confidence.

The latest date discovered is for Burrage House/Old Post Office in King Street. We were confident that this house was built soon after 1600 and were dumbfounded that it came out at 1694 to 1729, a full century later. The implications for understanding the hundreds of Norfolk houses dating from the late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries are profound and we have a lot of rethinking to do on this last one.

PROJECTS NEW BUCKENHAM We chose to study the historic buildings of New Buckenham as our first major research project. This choice was prompted by the inherent historic interest of the village plus the fact that having one of our members, Paul Rutledge, as the local historian meant that the documentary history of the houses has already been researched to a very high level. New Buckenham, Market Cross. New Buckenham, King Street. To back up the research into documents and the surveys of standing buildings we have carried out, we arranged for a tree-ring dating (dendrochronology) survey to be carried out by Ian Tyers of Sheffield University. This was financed by the National Heritage Lottery Fund. In February we took Ian into over twenty houses and from those he selected the few that were most likely to produce useful dates and in May we spent four days with him as he took samples from the timbers, a highly skilled and at times nerve-racking process. If one is lucky the rings will reveal a range of years giving a rough date for the felling of the tree and the building of the house. When a dendro date is discovered for a house it can back up the documentary and structural information to turn the building into a really effective focus for explaining the social and economic conditions of how people lived and worked in the village at the time it was built. The full results of our research will be published in the next issue of the NHBG Journal which will appear in Spring next year, 2005. Ian Tyers taking samples. On rare and very fortunate occasions the timber will yield the precise year and season of that year when it was cut down. It is therefore particularly gratifying that four out of the five dates obtained for houses sampled by Ian Tyers are precise year dates of this type. Three of the houses sampled would yield no date because they were built, like most of the timber-framed buildings in New Buckenham, from oaks which had been grown fast and used young, thus having few growth rings. All of these dates reinforce the stylistic evidence found in the actual buildings and they should enable us to learn lessons about the other houses in New Buckenham and in the countryside around with a new confidence.	HOME MEMBERSHIP WHATS ON PROJECTS LIBRARY CONTACT US LINKS
The earliest date was produced by the Old Vicarage, a precise dating which shows that the timber was cut down in the winter of 1451 – 1452.
Next in date was Oak Cottage & Yellow Cottage on the Market Green, which dated to 1473.
The Old Swan in King Street also gave a precise date, a century later, of 1573.
The samples taken from Pinchpot in Chapel Street co-incided exactly with the documentary date for the building of the house in 1624.
The latest date discovered is for Burrage House/Old Post Office in King Street. We were confident that this house was built soon after 1600 and were dumbfounded that it came out at 1694 to 1729, a full century later. The implications for understanding the hundreds of Norfolk houses dating from the late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries are profound and we have a lot of rethinking to do on this last one.
A supremely rewarding and worthwhile exercise only made possible by all the householders who kindly let us into their homes over the last two years. We know how we are going to spend winter: following up all the implications of these dates to put into the Journal next Spring! UPDATE - Journal now available. Susan & Michael Brown (NHBG) September 2004 NOW AVAILABLE NHBG JOURNAL VOLUME 2: THE HISTORIC BUILDINGS OF NEW BUCKENHAM