What is BARD?
The Building Archaeology Research Database (BARD) has been designed as an easy to use and accessible summary index for both published and unpublished building records. It’s main aim is to encourage involvement in building archaeology and its current 23,000+ records (including many tree-ring dated buildings) can be freely searched on-line.
- BARD is a primarily an on-line scientific research tool showing how building styles developed through time and across regions.
- BARD currently contains over 2500 tree-ring dated buildings and key features of timber-framing such as crucks, crown posts, wealdens, queen posts, etc can be selected and plotted.
- BARD provides systematic recording system for buildings that also helps to narrow down the likely date of construction.
NEW UPDATES:
The BARD system now accepts either UK National Grid References or What3Words addresses in the Location field and automatically calculates the Lat/Long from those entries. This is aim to opens up the use of BARD to all counties. It is also now possible for subscribed members to search and plot all key features in BARD as shown below:
Freely available to download from this site (as PDF’s files):
BARD Tick Box – These simply yet comprehensive ‘tick-box’ recording sheets allow you to systematic record the stylistic features of a building and indicate a likely date of construction.
BARD Illustrated Glossary – Building terminology can be very confusing and this pictorial glossary helps in the identification of most timber-frame features.
A published paper – This research paper concentrates on Surrey, but it shows the potential of using BARD to produce comparable studies for other areas.
NEW: The Search for Chamfer Stops
Not sure what a chamfer stop is, or what they look like? Just check out our new article: ‘The Search for Chamfer Stops’, on the Gloucestershire Dendrochronology project web-site at www.timber-framed.com