MODERN science has helped to solve a Ledbury mystery, the true age of the town's iconic building, the Market House.

Presenting the results of tree-ring analysis to the town council on Thursday evening, December 11, English Heritage's Inspector of Historic Buildings, Nick Molyneux said: "When the technique works, it's actually fantastic. It really does produce the goods.

"An upper storey beam gave a definitive date, and this finally places the building in history."

In welcoming Mr Molyneux, Ledbury's mayor Keith Francis described it as "a momentous occasion".

Mr Molyneux said: "I'm always nervous revealing the date of someone's building, especially when I'm standing in it!"

Only one of 16 samples of wood had its bark edge intact, giving a spread of annual tree-ring growth patterns for analysis all the way to the year of its felling, when compared with existing local and national data.

This showed that the tree was felled in 1617, the very date proposed by local historian Joe Hillaby, following a study of old records.

Tree ring analysis of other samples, though less complete, support a construction date in the early part of the seventeenth century.

No tree ring pattern gave a date later than 1617.

Mr Molyneux said he hoped that the Market House would have proved to be slightly older.

Other historians have recently proposed a later date or an extended period of construction, but this appears not to have been the case.

The timber that gave the definitive date was probably from the same tree that was used for another beam in the roof.

Mr Molyneux said: "The timber would have been used green. A building like this would have gone up pretty quickly."

Oak, the timber used for the majority of the Market House, quickly hardens.

This makes it incredible strong and resistant, but virtually unworkable. There was no evidence that any Spanish chestnut was used in the building at all, but some of the beams were found to be elm.

Mr Molyneux does not believe that the Market House was built by "the King's Carpenter" John Abel.

He said: "The buildings we know he built are quite different stylistically, with elaborate carvings."

The tree ring patterns do show that the Market House timbers were probably sourced from somewhere in the Three Counties.

The growth patterns in the timbers were similar to those from a building of an similar age in Gloucester.

Mr Molyneux said: "We are looking at local timbers and local builders, in 1617.”