Standing Building Recording
Date June 2021 - October 2021
Event ID 1144551
Category Recording
Type Standing Building Recording
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1144551
NS 66754 66344 A programme of historic building recording and excavation in association with major conservation repairs and refurbishment works was undertaken at Provan Hall, Glasgow. This historic mansion house complex comprises parallel residential ranges enclosing the N and S sides of a courtyard with screen walls to W and E, the latter containing a principal arched entrance to the centre. The present project involved the exposure of historic fabric including exterior and interior wall surfaces and early floor and roof structural timbers and the work took place from June to October 2021.
The North Range (Canmore ID: 44985) appears to be the earlier of the two, with the main components suggesting principal historic phases of the 16th and 17th centuries with later repairs and modifications.
Excavations within the vaulted lower level revealed that modern works had removed any occupational floor deposits of any significance. Modern paintwork was removed from the walls by steam cleaning, which revealed features and modifications in the stonework at ground floor level and historic wall and ceiling plaster at first floor level.
The primary plaster appeared to be an earth-lime mix, which seems likely to relate to a period of remodelling of the upper parts of the range in the 17th century. The existing ceiling and most of the elaborate hand-run cornice was found to be a secondary intervention that employed plasters of greyer hue, which had also been used to patch the walls in places. Several sections of the original cornice had been incorporated during restoration work in the early 20th century.
Survey of the exterior upper walling identified much evidence for recycling of dressed stones including roll-moulded jambs from earlier window openings and, most notably, larger slabs detailed with parts of small wide-mouthed gun ports/ shot-holes. These had evidently been formed of paired stones to provide defensive apertures and were in likelihood located below earlier first floor window openings, a feature suggestive of a mid-late-16th-century date.
The existing roof structure was also recorded in detail and revealed an early conifer roof with subsequent repairs and alterations. The conifer sarking boards included early material over much of the roof area, the individual boards preserving peg-holes and many individual oak slate pegs. However, the boarding had evidently been lifted and re-laid and the pattern of pegs-holes thus disrupted. Two phases of secondary sarking patching were recorded; at both stages, the slates had been affixed with nails rather than pegs.
Building work to the South Range (Canmore ID: 350187) was extensive and included complete removal of exterior harl and pointing, stripping of much of the roof structure and internally revealed floor structures and historic walling in several areas.
Exposure of the fabric of the E gable wall exterior revealed the existence of a former crow-stepped gable head set at considerably steeper pitch than the existing one and with an eaves line about 1m below the existing one. The earlier eaves line had featured triangular-headed dormer windows projecting above and several dormer lintels had been recycled within the later rebuilding.
There was no evidence for a crow-stepped head at the W gable wall, but there were indications that the range had formerly been of greater length, and that the existing gable was a former internal wall. Removal of harl on the W gable wall revealed that a first-floor window had originally been an entrance, with roll moulding on the exterior side. The N wall of the range appears to have originally extended further westwards, with the W side of the courtyard closed by a further range that contained the main accommodation. This is a typical late-medieval-early post-medieval arrangement whereby a principal tower is flanked by wings whose upper level provide additional high- status accommodation accessed to either side.
The South Range had been extensively remodelled in the
earlier 18th century, with the existing classically detailed south frontage attaining its present configuration, the wall-heads raised, and several other internal interventions. The attic level floor structure was raised, incorporating several timbers that derived from the range itself and displayed relict mortices, assembly marks and other features. A further major reworking of the south range saw the remodelling of the roof with the removal of copes and the installation of bargeboards, dormer windows and much associated interior refurbishment.
Removal of cement pointing to the courtyard screen walls to the E and W showed the W wall to have been a wholly modern construction. The E wall had seen considerable rebuilding and re-bedding in cement of the stonework of its upper parts but its remaining historic fabric was seemingly of a single build. At one point on the N side of the arched opening, a pistol-loop seems to have been formed from a recycled small gun port, its stones simply reversed.
Dendrochronological assessment and sampling in 2021 focused largely on the earliest conifer timbers in both North Range and South Range roof structures, the analysis of which is to be undertaken soon. However, a single oak timber, found just behind the sarking and laid horizontally on the stone lintel over the first-floor entrance to the North Range, has been analysed. It has signs of re-use, a redundant peg hole, and is not in its original situation. It is made of slow grown native oak, the ring sequence spans AD 1008–1249 (a span of 242 years) and the tree was over 300 years old when felled. The sequence is not complete to bark edge, but the outer edge is probably at the heartwood/sapwood boundary. If so, then we can use a UK sapwood range of 10–46 rings, indicating it was felled between AD 1259 and 1295.
Our tree-ring reference data for the Glasgow region are limited but the Provan Hall oak sequence matches most closely with data from beams removed in the early 20th century from Glasgow Cathedral’s main roofs. This single oak timber is the earliest dated physical evidence so far from Provan Hall. We continue to explore what this means. The two most likely possibilities are that it comes either from a now lost earlier building at Provan Hall or from the nearby Bishops of Glasgow residence at Lochwood, about 2km away, which does have late 13th-century small finds evidence. Documentary evidence records that the Bishops’ House was dismantled in 1579 with timber and other building materials being taken to Badenheath Tower, some five miles away (DES 1962, 34–5). The dating of the conifer roof on the North Range will help to work out when this single late 13th-century oak timber was placed into its current position at Provan Hall.
It is anticipated that the chronology for the evolution of the
structure may be much refined when collating the newly revealed structural evidence with the results of the dendrochronological study, the results of previous investigations at the site, and a systematic review of historical source material.
Archive: NRHE (intended) Funder: City of Glasgow Council
Tom Addyman and Coralie Mills – Addyman Archaeology and Dendrochronicle
(Source: DES Vol 22)
