As the new owner of Plas Coch in Ruthin, Kevin and Tracey were contacted by a local historian, Gareth Evans, with an interesting question…
His enquiry was whether they would be interested in being part of a survey as they had managed to get some “UK government funding, to date, by dendrochronology-tree-ring dating- a number of timber framed buildings in Ruthin.” This exciting proposition came about as The Ruthin Dendrochronology project had secured financial support from Community Innovation Denbighshire via the UK Community Renewal Fund, matched by Clocaenog Forest Windfarm Fund and led by Cadwyn Clwyd.
What an amazing opportunity. So of course, Kevin and Tracey agreed! This was put into action and Andy Moir of Tree Ring Services arrived to undertake the survey on 27th January 2023.
The sampling takes about three hours and involved taking cores from some of the older timbers, which you can see Mr Moir doing in the photographs. Trees respond to their environment and, depending on the weather, it will effect the speed with which they grow. The way I understand it is that these can then be seen in the cross section of tree rings. This is an amazing science and will help provide the evidence we need to date the build of Plas Coch.
It will be interesting to see if the information on the outside of the property, stating that the house was built in 1613, is proven or otherwise by this test…
