Nos. 31-33 is early C18, three storeys, five bays, good moulded doorcase. (1)

2 houses, now offices. Mid C17, refronted early C18, with early C19 additions and C19 and C20 alterations. (2)

I assume Pevsner's date refers to the façade. (3)

Upper cruck. (4)

The Pottersyke/Potterdike House building is believed to date from the first half of the eighteenth century (Pevsner 1979, 196). However, the building as seen today, does not belong to a single phase of construction, and has been extended on a number of occassions. The conference room and adjacent stairase and two bays to the east were added in the latter part of the eighteenth century, with the two projecting wings at the front and the bay to the west being nineteenth century additions. The building once had extensive gardens to the rear which are now part of a car-park. Investigations were undertaken on the remains of the original building, located in rooms 2.06, 2.07, and 2.08. The timbers here consist of five upper cruck blade trusses with collars, butt purlins, and common rafters. (5)

Dendrochronological analysis of timbers from Potterdike House resuled in the dating of seven timbers. One sample is known to have been felled in AD 1740, another in AD 1731, and a further five also estimated to have been felled in this period. The sample from AD 1731 shows no sign of reuse to explain its earlier date. A possible explanation is that this beam was made from timber originally intended for an earlier project undertaken by the wood-yard involved in the construction of Potterdike House, not used at the time but utilisted in the construction of the building. Furthermore, the high value at which several of these timbers cross-matched suggests that the trees from which they came from were from the same area. (5)

The eighth sample did not cross-match with the other samples and remains undated. This may be due to the presence of an unusually wide ring on this sample which may suggest some form of non-climatic influence on the tree during that year of growth. However, even after the removal of this ring and those after it this timber could not be dated. (5)

The analysis on this phase of Potterdike House has resulted in felling dates in the first half of the eighteenth century, AD 1740 or soon after. This dating is consistent with that sugested on stylistic grounds by Pevsner (1979). (5)

Listed buildings slides, 2 slides (Photograph). SNT2648.

<1> Pevsner N, 1979, The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire 2nd ed., p 196 (Monograph). SNT4.

<2> DOE, Listed Building Description (Published document). SNT228.

<3> White J, 2002, Pers Comm (Personal comment). SNT1529.

<4> John Samuels Archaeological Consultants, 1995, A Survey of Timber Framed Buildings of Newark, Stage 1 (Unpublished document). SNT2173.

<5> A.J. Arnold, R.E Howard, R.R Laxton, C.D Litton, 2002, The Urban Development of Newark-on-Trent: A Dendrochronological Approach (Monograph). SNT1624.