With funding support from the Olicana Historical Society and Addingham Civic Society, as well as the LHI, we have commissioned scientists to use dendro-dating techniques to establish the exact age of the church roof timbers, to shed light on local secular and ecclesiastical building techniques down the years. 

Dr  Ian Tyers of the Dendrochronology Laboratory in the Department of Archaeological Science at the University of Sheffield worked at the church for two days in October 2006. Working from a scaffolding and on a ladder, he took 14 different samples from within the church roof timbers in the North Aisle and the Nave, using a special drill. 

You will be interested to know that the wood was so hard that the drill heated up as it cut into the beams, so filling the church (temporarily!) with the smell of bonfires.

Watching him when the pictures were taken were Arnold Pacey, the well-known local historian, and Alison Armstrong, formerly of Addingham and now living nearby in Bradley, who has herself undertaken amateur dendrochronology.

The dendrochronological dating analysis results are now available - Arnold Pacey led a workshop on this data for the Olicana History Society in May 2007. The earliest date was found to be from a tie-beam sample in the Nave, from which a likely felling period of AD1476-1512 was calculated. Dr. Tyers writes in his report:

"The shrinkage and seasoning distortions on the original inner face of this tie beam suggests that this timber was sawn in half lengthwise whilst it was still relatively fresh and thus probably within a few months of it felling. In all likelihood therefore this timber was first used during either the late 15th or early 16th centuries."

The results from the North Aisle samples suggest a felling period of between AD1511 and AD1531.

This is but a taster of the wealth of detail in the report which offers intriguing questions for our interpretation concerning the dating of the building with this wonderful roof. The report says:

"Overall the Addingham samples have produced a rather complex series of interpretive possibilities."

It will be interesting to make  comparisons with similar tests carried out on the roof of the Great Barn at Bolton Abbey. On  8th Sept 2007, the Great Barn was open (by ticket only!) thanks to the Addingham Civic Society, just for one day, from 10 to 1.15 pm. 

The Barn is stone built and has an impressive timber superstructure of nine king-post frames to support the graduated stone tile roof. The Barn is ten bays long and in the fifth bay there is a threshing floor.

We thank the Olicana Historical Society and Addingham Civic Society who contributed to the funding of the roof investigation, and Dr. Tyers and his team for their work on the Addingham project. This new information will update the study already undertaken by the Civic Society, and will be made available to visitors. You can read the text of the Civic Society Leaflet here