Samples have been taken from the timbers of the Long Gallery and the Lower Hall of the remaining domestic buildings of Abingdon Abbey. Following permission from English Heritage the work was carried out by Dr Martin Bridge and Dr Dan Miles of the Oxford Dendrochronology Lab.
Thanks to Michael Harrison for this picture of one of a number of pencil like cores taken from the timbers. Together the samples will be analysed for tree rings which can represent a unique climatic pattern before the timbers were felled.
(Thanks to Elizabeth for the information. She says there may well be a competition to guess the age of the buildings.)
This is fascinating. Lots of people don’t even know where these buildings are or that they exist so perhaps some publicity about the age of the timbers and their previous lives would good when the results arrive.
I remember doing work experience on these buildings in the early eighties,The guy who was supervising us was so drunk he was always asleep in his office.