Monument record MDS 142 - Church of St Mary

A church is recorded at Mendlesham in the Domesday book.
Church of St Mary. Consists of chancel, nave, aisles, N & S porches, embattled W tower. Fine collection of armour dating from 1470 to 1600 and part Elizabethan (?) long bow. Details in (S1)(S2).

2006: Two pine chests in the chamber above the north porch of the parish church were investigated. The chest lying north-south against the north wall retained the outer edge of the sapwood which would have been immediately below the bark on its right-hand end board. A core was taken through this board and the outer 1-2mm was lost in this operation. The core yielded a 143-year sequence, with very narrow outer rings. A photographic record was made from this board to extend the core series towards the inner part of the tree, and also of the other end board, and the end boards of the second chest.
A 171-year sequence was formed for the first chest, although the inner 21 rings were exceptionally wide. When edited out, the remaining 150-year sequence matches three independent Polish pine chronologies with the outermost year retained having been formed in 1417. Taking a maximum loss of 2mm of outer rings, the outer 20 rings have a mean ring width of 0.37mm, this could represent five or six rings at most, and the likely felling date of this timber is therefore in the 1420s.
The photographically-derived mean sequence from the two boards of the second chest is 140 years long, and matches the edited sequence from the first chest with the outer ring retained having been formed in 1388. No sapwood is evident on this second chest so it is not possible to derive the felling date of the parent tree dendrochronologically.
It seems likely the two very similar chests were made at about the same time, using pine felled in northern Poland. Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2006 (S3). Full report to follow.