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Research Database (BARD) has been designed as an easy to use and accessible summary index for both published and unpublished building records.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 24,000+ records (including 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 contains over 2700 tree-ring dated buildings and key features of timber-framing such as crucks, crown posts, wealdens, queen posts, etc can be selected and mapped.
- The BARD rick-box sheet provides systematic recording system for buildings that uses previously tree-ring dated to narrow down likely dates of construction.
Please download these freely available PDF file resources which have been developed to work with BARD:
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 – New 2024 version. Building terminology can be very confusing and this pictorial glossary helps in the identification of most timber-frame features.
The Search for Chamfer Stops – a short article on some of the more common types
A published paper – This research paper concentrates on Surrey, but it shows the potential of using BARD to produce comparable studies for other areas.
WHAT’S NEW:
Cotswold’s Hidden Crucks Project: Bishop’s Cleeve
UPDATE: 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:
