Arcade post, building timber

This oak post once formed part of a large building which, study of the tree-rings indicates, was erected in about 956-79. The main post is carved from the trunk of a single oak tree. Planks are fixed on either side to form an arcade. They are fastened to a cross-batten with iron rivets of the type used in shipbuilding. Several more posts from the same building have been found. They formed the internal supports for a building that must have been at least 11 metres (36 feet) tall. It may have been a great aisled hall or a church. The building was eventually demolished and the timbers were cut short, sharpened, and fixed into the ground as part of a retaining wall for an embankment at the edge of the River Thames in the City of London.