Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory - Pembrokeshire UK
Pembrokeshire UK
ST DAVIDS, St Davids Cathedral (SM 7515 2543)
(a) Tower Felling date ranges: 1248-1278; 1273-1303; 1286-1316; 1287-1317; 1303-1333
(b) Bellframe Felling dates: Spring 1386
(c)Nave roof trusses Felling date ranges: 1501-1531 to 1544-1574
(d)Nave roof ceiling boards Felling date ranges: 1434-1474; 1445-1475
(a) Braces (5/7) 1292(H/S?), 1275(H/S), 1271(+5 heartwood to H/S bdy NM), 1262(H/S), 1215; Joists (1/3) 1237 (H/S); Wall posts (0/1); Longitudinal beams (0/2); (b) Braces (6/7) 1385(31¼C), 1363(H/S), 1353(2), 1346(H/S), 1339(H/S?), 1294; Posts (5/7), 1353, 1347(H/S?), 1339(H/S?), 1334(H/S), 1332; Plates (2/6) 1355(H/S?), 1323; (c) Tiebeams (1/3) 1533(H/S); Ridges 1515(H/S), 1507(near H/S), 1505(H/S), 1504(H/S)2, Purlins (2/3) 1490(H/S), 1500(H/S); Principal rafters 1502(near H/S bdy), 1496, 1494, 1466(near H/S bdy 1454(near H./S bdy); King post (1496H/S); Longitudinal beam (0/1); (d) Ceiling boards (5/6) 1434(H/S), 1431, 1427, 1424, 1423(H/S). Site Masters (a) 1086-1292 STDAVID1 (t = 9.3 NORTH; .9.2 WALES97; 8.3 SOUTH); (b) 1196-1385 STDAVID2 (t=5.4 BURFRD1; 5.3 WLSC0203; 5.2 WENDFARM; 5.1 crane12; 5.0 WBRADLEY); (c and d) 1222-1533 STDAVID3 (t=9.9 Wigall46; 9.6 WALES97; 9.0 NORTH).
Of this complex building, three major elements were sampled in this work; elements not sampled included the screens and stalls, the timber vault at the tower crossing, and a currently inaccessible fragment of early roof (ex inf. Jerry Sampson). Dating commissioned by RCAHMW as a centenary project with the support of the Dean, the Very Rev. J. Wyn Evans. See also Roger Worsley. The Buildings of Wales: Pembrokeshire (2004) and Wyn Evans & Roger Worsley, St Davids Cathedral 1181-1981 (1981). (a) The three-stage tower is of several builds. The original tower partly collapsed in 1220 (?) and was rebuilt in at least two phases; the second stage with ballflower ornament is fourteenth century and the upper stage with belfry, parapet and pinnacles dates from c.1500. The ceiling bracing of the clock chamber below the belfry was sampled. Jowled posts rising from corbels with large curved timber braces support the main beams of the bell-chamber floor; the joists pass over the beams. The braces are apparently in situ (though many of the joists are reused) and date from between 1300-1325. They presumably date the initial reconstruction of the tower. (b) The bellframe in the chamber above was adjusted and expanded in the nineteenth century (painted date of 1852) but incorporates much material from an earlier bellframe constructed from timber felled shortly after 1385. The bellframe is earlier than the belfry in its present form and must have been reframed more than once, as redundant mortices demonstrate. The bellframe is the earliest known in Wales and one of the earliest identified in Britain. (c) The nave roof is an important 'pendant ceiling', the object of much admiration since the later sixteenth century. It is secular in type (appropriate for a great hall) with a strongly marked Renaissance character, especially in the detailing of the pendants and in the innovative structural form of the trusses. The ceiling of twelve bays, each with ten boarded panels, is suspended from the tiebeams of low-pitched king-post trusses (numbered I-IIX on the ridge beam). The king posts are 'joggled' to receive the principal rafters but are not braced. These may be the earliest king-post trusses of Italian type surviving in Britain. It has been suggested that the roof is of Flemish workmanship, made from Irish oak; however, cross-matching showed that the roof was made from Welsh rather than Irish oak, although the roof certainly has a Continental (Renaissance) character. A more detailed account of this roof is in preparation. Sampling gave an unexpectedly complex series of dates ranging from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century. The timbers had been defrassed (probably in the nineteenth century) and felling dates were estimated from the heartwood-sapwood boundary. The felling date ranges indicate three phases: (1) a stockpiling phase in the first quarter of the sixteenth century; (2) a construction phase in the second quarter of the sixteenth century; (3) a phase of repair and consolidation in the mid-sixteenth century. This complex sequence is consistent with the documentary sources; these indicate that the roof was commissioned before 1509, was partly constructed by the 1530s, but that work stopped between 1536 and 1548. (d) Unexpectedly, tree-ring dating shows that the ceiling boards (feather-edged and v-edged, and numbered) are earlier than the ceiling beams, and had been reused from an earlier ceiling or timber-vaulted roof of c.1450, possibly the predecessor nave roof.
(Miles, Worthington, and Bridge 2008, VA 39, list 206)
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Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory
ProprietorsMichael Worthington
Jane Seiter, Ph.D
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Baltimore, MD 21230
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