First view of ancient timber that could date Highland castle
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A humble piece of wood that could help date a historic site in Caithness was carefully removed by a team of specialists last week and captured on video.
The team from Historic Environment Scotland (HES) had erected scaffolding inside the medieval Castle of Old Wick to help gain access to an oak timber fragment lodged within a joist socket of an upper floor.
In a series of videos, Rachel Pickering, senior cultural resources advisor at HES and project lead, along with Dr Coralie Mills and Hamish Darrah of Dendrochronicle could be seen working at the rectangular socket which would have originally held a floor beam about eight metres above ground level.
Ms Pickering said: “This is an exciting research project, supported by our partners the Castle Studies Trust, which will help us better understand how old the castle is and its place in Caithness' medieval history. It’s also a rare chance to undertake such analysis and add to a small but vital dataset for future archaeological research."
She added: “Our specialist contractors, Dr Coralie Mills and Hamish Darrah of Dendrochronicle have carefully excavated a timber fragment from the site, which is the only surviving evidence in the castle that might be able to give us a scientific date for its construction.
"This will then be carefully transported to a lab in Edinburgh for analysis and we hope the results will give us a scientific date for the castle, which will help us better understand when it was first constructed and in use.”
Dr Mills said that the timber was longer than expected which "is good news for testing" but made the removal trickier. "It's a piece of oak that's been roughly squared and it has all the characteristics of an early timber so we're feeling optimistic."
Her colleague at the site, Hamish Darrah, said the timber was in "remarkable condition" despite being exposed to the elements for so long. The only surviving timber from the castle was removed on the second day of fieldwork, after being assessed on day one.
The Castle of Old Wick is one of the county's most striking medieval sites due to its rugged location on a promontory with low-lying earthworks behind.
Very little is known about the castle’s origin and development – there is limited documentary evidence relating to its earlier history and no diagnostic architectural features survive, making it very difficult to date. It was once thought to have been one of the earliest stone castles in Scotland, associated with Norse earls of Orkney and Caithness.
An illustrated information panel at the site describes the castle as one of the oldest in Scotland, "probably built by the Earl of Caithness, Harald Maddadson, in the 1160s".
However, there are also suggestions that the castle may have been built 200 years later in the 14th century.
It is hoped that the research will shed light on the construction and development of the Castle of Old Wick, by providing valuable scientific dating evidence. The project will also potentially support the ongoing development of dendrochronological analysis within Scotland, as every new analysis can help to add to and refine existing tree-ring chronologies, which in turn supports future research.
If it is not possible to analyse the rings of the timber due to its condition, then an alternative method will be undertaken using radiocarbon "wiggle matching". This would involve taking several samples for high precision radiocarbon dating, allowing for a more accurately calibrated radiocarbon date for the timber.
A spokesperson for HES told the paper that though a specific time could not be given on when the test results would be available they would contact us as soon as they are known.
Related article:
Timber fragment could shed new light on Castle of Old Wick construction
