The results are back following the testing of selected timbers in July 2022 by Andy Moir. These results will help to identify the date of the build of this version of Plas Coch.
The report states that the oak trees used for the beams that were sampled, were felled in the Winter of 1604/5. Which is in itself amazing! To be able to work out the year that the tree stopped growing. Wow!
I had a few more questions which I put to Andy Moir. He was able to clarify how old the tree was and …what I find even more mind-blowing is, that Andy Moir is also able to say when the tree started life! Or as I like to think of it…when it was an acorn.
So looking at the report and discussing the information it provided with Andy he explained that the timber sampled was taken from a tree that was 153 years old and it started to grow in 1452.
Isn’t it mind-blowing to think you can get all that information from a wood sample?!
Putting that into a context of history, Elizabeth 1st died in 1603. James I, son of Mary, Queen of Scots was on the throne. Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot was in 1605, in 1607 there was a serious outbreak of plague in nearby Conwy and in 1608 the first telescope was used by Galileo and John Milton the English Poet is born.
So I’m looking on the brightest side of history and flippantly thinking that it was time of great inventions, with the birth of a great poet and a resource for the futures cracking costumes. So with no further ado……
The exact date of build from the Dendrochronologist for Plas Coch is…(drumroll)…
1608.
