EDO6062 - Wolfeton Riding House, Charminster; tree-ring dating 2005

Three timbers from an original floor were most likely felled in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century, confirming that this is indeed an early example of a riding house in this country. A large section of sapwood, retaining the outermost ring, was removed from one beam, adjacent to the core hole, but it is not possible to say if rings had been lost between the inner part of this section and the heartwood-sapwood boundary because, as in the core, the innermost sapwood rings were so degraded. If so, measurement of the core length and core hole depth enabled one to determine that few rings had been lost. This one timber is likely to have been felled circa AD 1600, which could perhaps suggest that this riding house may predate the oldest example in the country previously documented. Six timbers from the later replacement roof were all probably felled in, or shortly after AD 1720, indicating that this major phase of modification and repair took place just over a century after the construction of the riding house.