| Description | Stone house, of perhaps two main buidling periods; the west cross wing is of 17th century date, while the main range has 18th century details (square sectioned door jambs and mullions) but also possibly dates from the 17th century. The cross wing is of two full storeys, while the main range, aisled at the rear, is of 1½ storeys. Sundivison of the house into cottages and the rendering of the entire wall surface have made interpretation of the house rather difficult.
(Text edited from Giles and Swan, 1978)
Tree ring analysis of timbers from Lands Head Farm was carried out in June 1997 by ARCUS (commissioned by the occupants) in order to date the construction of the building and the later alterations. Lands Head Farm is a large stone house which is believed to date from the early to mid 17th century. Hidden within the central range of the building are the remains of timber framing which suggest the original house was an aisled hall.The hall has been extensively altered and part of the framing was removed to accomodate the insertion of an upper storey in the main range.
The timbers from the central range and cross wing were assessed to identify those which would be suitable for analysis . The timbers were sampled using a 15mm diameter corer attached to an electric drill. Each core was sanded to reveal the ring sequence and samples with less than 50 rings were rejected. Samples which crossmatch were combined to form the site master curve which was compared to reference chronologies to obtain an absolute date.
All timbers in the building were assessed and 12 beams were found to be suitable for sampling. The samples were taken from the original timber framing and the later alterations. Four of the samples were found to crossmatch and formed a site master chronology. This sequence was dated to AD 1458 1579 with a felling date of spring AD 1580. A sample taken from the west wing of the house was dated to sometime after AD 1637.
The results suggested that the hall was built in the late 16th Century and then sometime in the 17th century, perhaps after 1637, the house was partially rebuilt and enlarged. |