Date My Floorboards

[Anastasia]

Hello all,

Looking for some advice to how old the floorboards are in our grade 2 listed property.

For context the property was built sometime in the 16C, the floorboards are clearly not original and have been replaced at some point in time.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Toby Newell]

Hello all,

Looking for some advice to how old the floorboards are in our grade 2 listed property.

For context the property was built sometime in the 16C, the floorboards are clearly not original and have been replaced at some point in time.

Many thanks in advance!

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C. 16th, you mean the 1500s then?

You have a mixture of pine and what looks like elm, although I am going on the feint dust in the grain in photo one (boards 1 through 6 from the right starting at the chair) and the hallway. It's possible some of the elm might be original. Easy to tell. Sand them, they should be chock full of woodworm holes. Try lifting some and check the thickness and check for pit sawing marks.

They are mostly pine replacements of various ages, some of the pine could be C 20th, some 1800s and some even earlier, some of the really cupped ones in the hall and many others could be 1700s pine, cannot tell until sanded. Mmmm, hall now looks like very old pine now, I am dating dirt and bitumen painted boards from low res photos so this is the best I can do.

What is the monster in photos 7, 8 and 9? Would be nice if that was an elm survivor, it kindo of looks like pine, impressive width though. If so it's possible that OE boards were wide elm which got eaten and replaced with narrower elm, most of which got eaten and then replaced with pine.

Where are your beams? A 1500s rural house should have exposed beams. Is this first floor? I presume you have beams downstairs. If so send photos. If they are elm, or some of them are elm that would bolster my theory. I have found Oxford and Banbury to be a hotspot for elm in the South, I have found them in Cambs but have done less work there so my sample size is much smaller.

Most C.16th timber was oak for both beams and floors with pine / fir / spruce / larch less common for flooring and even less common for beams.

It is not unusual to find 95% oak beams with 5% elm interlopers. I am unsure if these were later repairs or more probably cuckoos. Maybe the builder / vendor ran out of money ( oak is a lot more durable to rot / worm ) or simply the air dried, dirty beams looked like oak. The grain of both is very similar, it happened to me, well, a 75 year old wood craftsman and me... The same was true with floors. Most 1500s elm is now crunchie bar or dust, still some 1700s elm about. Sometimes they were used for repairs when oak wasn't readily available. It's not uncommon to find one or two elm or the odd ash infills in an ancient oak or pine floor. So elm can sneak in. When I go to an ostensibly oak job in an ancient property I play 'hunt the elm' I am upset if I don't find any. Having said all that they could be oak or pine with a wierd grain.

Below... ok, so two of these are oak and one is elm, granted they are French polished now, but they were rough sawn air dried for 40 years in an open shelter and before I sanded them they were very dirty and both the old boy who originally cut them and sold them as oak to my friend myself didnt realise, neither did I.

So, most are pretty old 1800s or 1700s pine with (possibly) a few elm, which may or may not be original C.16th. Time to get the scraper out I think and post more photos. The more I can see the more I can tell.