On what basis would he say it's not 500 years old?
I'll cut the edges a bit wobbly and rub some lard on instead of the tin of Ronseal.
The oldest door in England (UK?)
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I'll cut the edges a bit wobbly and rub some lard on instead of the tin of Ronseal.
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I'm not sure what point you are making or how it explains dendrochronology.
The science can be compared to undisturbed sedimentary layers. Individual sedimentary layers for example can show what was happening on the planet during a particular time, same a tree rings. Various samples from around the earth can be matched and compared. Earlier samples can overlap with more recent samples and so on, until you form a chronological catalogue. Similar with ice core samples.
Unless he is a Republican or an RWR.
Tree rings effectively sample the growth conditions for each year that it was growing. You check the thicknesses against other trees from other periods, the overlaps between individual trees give a history between today and hundreds of years earlier. I understand, no need to explain further. You're explaining the easy bit but missing the point.
The outermost ring of a tree when it is chopped down is the ring that was made the year in which it was harvested. This will be, near enough, the year in which whatever it is used for is probably made.
But all other rings will be older. If you were to take say a 2" x 2" length from the inner part of the trunk then the rings that it is composed of will have rings that were made lots of years before the tree was harvested, possibly centuries earlier.
Unless there's some bark in the door (unlikely) then how does anyone know how old that particular set of rings was at the time the door was made? It may give an overestimate, especially for older times when Britain had vast numbers of very old trees in ancient woodlands.
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I think Ivor's point is, is the door the age of the wood that it is made of, or the age at which it was made into a door.
Obviously, its age is when it was made.
Like your granite kitchen worktop is a year old, not 40 million years old.
And that dendrochronology can give a maximum age of the door, but not its actual age.
I'm stunned that you have thought of something that has never occurred to any professional before.
But wait!
Maybe you haven't.
"...Dendrochronology carried out on the N door in 2003 was hampered by the fact that the door has no sapwood (Bridge and Miles 2003). The latest heartwood ring dates from 1025, and estimates of the lowest number of sapwood rings lost suggest that the earliest possible felling date was 1034. No estimate of the latest date was possible from the evidence, so a date range of c.1050 -75 was proposed, as a compromise between the inconclusive tree-ring dates and Fernie's analysis of the architecture...."
Obviously it's been thought of before, you're only making a fool of yourself with the silly strawman insults.
My point is that it's an estimate. So arguing about whether this door is a few years older than that door is pretty silly, as nobody really knows for sure.
The most recent ring in the entire door may be a lot older than the tree from which it was made, so the door as a whole may be much less old than all the wood it is made from.
My point is that it's an estimate. So arguing about whether this door is a few years older than that door is pretty silly, as nobody really knows for sure.
The most recent ring in the entire door may be a lot older than the tree from which it was made, so the door as a whole may be much less old than all the wood it is made from.
Ahh, so what you have established is that dendrochronology is about ageing the wood itself rather than ageing a door or when B&Q made it. Well done Sherlock, give yourself a pat on the back.
Fascinating stuff...
They built a database, of growth widths, versus areas, which they can scale/compare going back from the present, for many centuries. From the data they can compare the rings, and finding a match to scale, work out when that particular section of tree was growing and in many cases where. What they cannot tell, unless they have a section including the outer rings, is tell when it was originally felled
D
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6,000 oaks and elms were used in the construction of HMS Victory.
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Ten Interesting Facts and Figures about HMS Victory
The flagship of Admiral Horatio Nelson, the HMS Victory is one of the most famous ships to sail in the Royal Navy. Launched in 1765, it would see its name go down in the history books nearly forty years later at the Battle of Trafalgar. While Nelson would command the battle from the Victory’s...
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Correct. They go back quite a way too.
I don't think dendro chronologists claim to always pinpoint exact felled dates, it's usually a date range along with a best estimate, which is still useful from an archaeologist or historian point of view. When sampling, say, a roof truss, it will depend on the quality of the sample, how many rings are covered, type of wood, etc. The better the sample the better the estimate.
So... if a door was made last week from a 100 year old part of a freshly felled tree then is this door new or 100 years old? I'd suggest it's new, therefore you can't say that a door is whatever age based solely upon the rings within the wood it's made from.
Cleverologists of all varieties seem to get a bit over-confident with their trumpet-blowing certainty at times. I remember the old Time Team programmes, they'd dig up three stones and a bone and their pet archaeologist would conclude with absolute certainty that this was an ancient spiritual worship temple or something. Nobody can prove that they're wrong I suppose.
Cleverologists of all varieties seem to get a bit over-confident with their trumpet-blowing certainty at times. I remember the old Time Team programmes, they'd dig up three stones and a bone and their pet archaeologist would conclude with absolute certainty that this was an ancient spiritual worship temple or something. Nobody can prove that they're wrong I suppose.
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I remember sitting in a 13th century coaching inn all those years ago & wondering why the timber beams all had woodwork marks that didn't correspond to the structure.
How can these beams be original I asked myself? Pointing to an obvious Mortice hole which was there for no particular reason.
The landlord who I recall took an extreme pleasure in explaining it all to me told me this . . . . "Many of these buildings were built from the structural timbers of the sailing ships of the time. the hull planking would rot out long before the ships internal timbers. They'd make a decision on whether the ship was worth re planking the hull or whether they'd scrap it & recycle the good timber.
Many of our old buildings are built from these recycled structural timbers. So a building that we know was erected in 1644 might be built from the timbers of a ship built in 1550, which in turn was built from timber felled in 1530.
History is wonderful if you have an inquisitive mind, the rest of you need to understand that you don't know what you don't know & you should never expect that everyone else has to accept the firm conclusion that your uninformed mind has reached.
How can these beams be original I asked myself? Pointing to an obvious Mortice hole which was there for no particular reason.
The landlord who I recall took an extreme pleasure in explaining it all to me told me this . . . . "Many of these buildings were built from the structural timbers of the sailing ships of the time. the hull planking would rot out long before the ships internal timbers. They'd make a decision on whether the ship was worth re planking the hull or whether they'd scrap it & recycle the good timber.
Many of our old buildings are built from these recycled structural timbers. So a building that we know was erected in 1644 might be built from the timbers of a ship built in 1550, which in turn was built from timber felled in 1530.
History is wonderful if you have an inquisitive mind, the rest of you need to understand that you don't know what you don't know & you should never expect that everyone else has to accept the firm conclusion that your uninformed mind has reached.
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