OLD farmhouses hold many secrets and Whitfield Court at Glewstone is no exception.

It has seen scandals, court cases, tragedies and weddings over its many years.

But now Dr Andy Moir, a local dendrochronologist who can tell the age of oak beams by counting the rings, has solved one mystery - the beams in the roof have at last revealed their age and they date from 1751.

Andy from Tree-Ring Services, recently gave a talk at Ross Civic Society and explains: "You can tell a lot about the age of a house by the style of certain structures, even the saw marks, especially in the roof area. But tree ring analysis is more precise just as long as you have enough rings. The wood never lies.”

It appears that many of the beams Whitfield Court, were re-used from an earlier building and were added during later home improvements.

This is known that because the house - or ‘messuage’ - is mentioned in a 1690 indenture held in the Herefordshire Archives and early tax records suggest there was a farm there as early as 1334.

Nonetheless, this dating of the wood adds a useful piece to the jigsaw that is the history of the house.

Whitfield Court is shown as a substantial property on the 1754 Isaac Taylor Map of Herefordshire when it was owned by the Edwards family.

Shortly after the widow Elizabeth Edwards married the wealthy Reverend Thomas Jones and it was during this time the Edwards family were engaged in a legal battle with the well-respected local MP, John Scudamore with a potentially forged deed being at the centre of one of the longest legal cases in history.

Later owners include Lord Tredegar and the Moreland family, best known as match manufacturers in Gloucester. Today the Grade II Listed house and barns have been modernised and form a courtyard of attractive homes.