To save or not to save an old floor

[KJD5563]

All - new to this forum (loving it!) with a question. We are in the process of a major renovation of a Sussex house that has at its core a cottage that was built c. late 1500's/early 1600's. It's a bit of a mess - the owners i bought it from were in their 80's and nothing's been touched since early 1980's. I have a good builder working on it but we had a heavy debate yesterday on site about whether to save or not to save the wood flooring in the attached picture. it is definitely the oldest flooring in the house - there are some other older floors but nothing that looks like this. They also aren't in very good shape. Does anyone more knowledgeable than myself (which is pretty much everyone) have an idea of what these floors might be made of and how old they might be? If they are pretty old, i'm willing to make the effort if it's doable as a bunch of original materials in this house were badly tampered with in a 1952 redo apparently, so would love to keep it. But if they aren't super old or anything, it's not worth the effort. Many thx.

 

[mardinor]

Toby Newell will give you chapter and verse.
But your instincts are correct - they are beautiful. And purely from the width look a good few centuries old.
Sack any builder that suggests you remove them. If funds don't allow, board over in a way that preserves them for future owners.
Not listed?

 

[Cubist]

I see what I think is the 'tongue' of a tongue and groove board. These were not manufactured before the late 1800s. It's feasible that a carpenter/joiner made them before then but that is a little unlikely. The wood appears to be oak but with that degree of staining that's not certain. You may get a further clue by measuring the thickness of the planks if you can and the width. Imperial dimensions would be an inch or greater in thickness and 6 inches plus wide.

 

[Lacan07]

Save, save, save

 

[CliffordPope]

It doesn't really matter how old they are. They are lovely in their own right.
I don't know what you do with the gaps, but there are people here who do.

 

[Kearn]

I see what I think is the 'tongue' of a tongue and groove board. These were not manufactured before the late 1800s. It's feasible that a carpenter/joiner made them before then but that is a little unlikely. The wood appears to be oak but with that degree of staining that's not certain. You may get a further clue by measuring the thickness of the planks if you can and the width. Imperial dimensions would be an inch or greater in thickness and 6 inches plus wide.

I think you may find they’re not T&G but lapped. We have ancient oak lapped boards and did in our previous house too, both sets of boards dating from somewhere either side of 1600. However, they aren’t apparently that common… lapping a board by hand was a big undertaking, but helped with dealing with minimising gaps due to shrinkage.

 

[Kearn]

They look like very old oak boards. Massively valuable to the building and probably pre- date the Georgians. Think it’s time to find a new builder who understands what they’re looking at and how to care for an ancient building…

 

[KJD5563]

Thanks so much for the replies and also looking forward to toby's input. For some additional context, i was told by the surveyor that the house is what was called a wasteland cottage - built just off the commons areas by people who were tradesman and needed someplace to graze a cow , etc. He told me that these were mostly built between 1580-1620 and then there was some sort of ordinance passed in 1620 ish and a lot of them were pulled down - squatters huts i guess. Some were given the opportunity to buy a minimum parcel of land and make it a legitimate holding - this is apparently one. So not fancy i guess, but old. It started as 3 bays - a room on either side of the smoke bay. The chimney stack was apparently chunked down in the middle of the smoke bay later - the original smoke hood in stone is still there. This house was really trashed in the 1950's when someone ripped off the west extension that was added in the early 1700's ( in a T shape to the original house) and doubled the size. We are finding that under the (what has turned out to be) fake plaster a lot of outside walls have been rebuilt in cinderblock underneath the shingles on the 1st floor - ground floor is brick, front of first floor is white wood cladding. There were/are some original lathe and plaster ceilings, a chunk of which the builder has just had to take down because someone put plasterboard directly over them and when they went to take that off, the lathe and plaster came with it. i am not an expert in this. My late husband and i redid an old house so i've some experience, but not at this level. Apparently a lot of the joists and purlin's are shot full of wood worm - a lot of it old infestation, some new. i fought to not redo all that, but when i went down this weekend they showed me you can stick a pen right through the wood it's so soft. So it sounds like we are going to get major surgery there. So...this is why i want to try to preserve as much of the heritage elements of the house left that i can. i am just trying to figure out where to pick my battles, which is why i'm now fixated on the floor. On the top picture above you can see the original 3 bays. The bedroom door (into which all of this wood also runs) was actually not there until 1952 when the house was redone (the plans for that are at the council so i've seen them - it's the first planning application on file for the house ). so that was all one room that front bay and all of the flooring is the same. Here are a few more shots if useful for anyone to tell me what they think. I love this site - it will be my weekend reading.

 

[KJD5563]

Toby Newell will give you chapter and verse.
But your instincts are correct - they are beautiful. And purely from the width look a good few centuries old.
Sack any builder that suggests you remove them. If funds don't allow, board over in a way that preserves them for future owners.
Not listed?

yes Grade 2 listed

 

[Stevers]

Those boards look a lot like Elm, not that it changes anything other than being potentially an even rarer and more interesting survival.

 

[KJD5563]

I see what I think is the 'tongue' of a tongue and groove board. These were not manufactured before the late 1800s. It's feasible that a carpenter/joiner made them before then but that is a little unlikely. The wood appears to be oak but with that degree of staining that's not certain. You may get a further clue by measuring the thickness of the planks if you can and the width. Imperial dimensions would be an inch or greater in thickness and 6 inches plus wide.

As an update - i went down this afternoon to look again and do some measurements. There are some boards that were likely replacements at some point -more cornered, planed smoother, etc. Those boards are 12 inches wide and 1 inch approximately deep. I'd say of the area about 15-20% are this. The rest appear to be much older, much less uniform, rough in places on the top, much 'rounder' edges and corners if that makes sense. Most of these boards are 14 inches wide, some are 11 inches, some are 9 inches wide. I'd say roughly 50% of the boards or slightly more are the 14 inch variety. They are not tongue and groove but seem to overlap each other in some way. The depth of the older boards varies from just over half an inch to about 3/4 of an inch. All of the boards are nailed straight onto the joists, there is no sub flooring. I've reached out to a flooring conservationist - hopefully he'll reply - as i'd like someone to come look at them i think so i know how to deal with them. The boards run almost the whole width of the space that would have been the whole bay - they dropped a bedroom over half of it in the 50's but you can see at the doorway that the walls sit right over these boards.

 

[Cubist]

Then Kearns was right in suspecting 'lapped' joints as opposed to tongue and groove as I first thought. The width variations and the fact many of the boards are 12 and up to 14 inches wide, and some having an un-planed rear face, suggests they were cut by a local Sawyer rather than an industrialised concern. Thickness variations can result from centuries of footfall in some areas but could also be due to occasional repairs/replacement of some using whatever timber happened to be available at the time - one of our bedroom floors had no less than four different species of timber and included what was, to my mind, some scavenged mahogany from a large item of furniture.

You should indeed consult a specialist but be ready for that 'sharp intake of breath and much sucking of teeth'.

 

[Itchinfilth]

SAVE! Those are stunning.I uncovered similar in our early 17th c house. Spent months on them giving them TLC and so glad I did.

 

[Matt Green]

Toby Newell will give you chapter and verse.

It's looking increasingly like he's either checked out of this forum or, hopefully, just having a long holiday.

@KJD5563 -do look up his website, he's based in Surrey.

 

[ThornhillMike]

It's looking increasingly like he's either checked out of this forum or, hopefully, just having a long holiday.

@KJD5563 -do look up his website, he's based in Surrey.

He had a spat with a fellow long serving member and exited stage left on principle. Big shame as his wisdom and insight, whilst sometimes a little caustic for some, was invaluable for many.