1) Wood used for panelling.
The wood which was used for panelling was referred to from the fifteenth century as ‘wainscots’ and then more frequently as ‘ceiling boards’. The celing burdes or sealing burdes that Robert Hirst of Leeds described in 1499 as now lieng in my laith [barn] were intended for church repairs. Another early reference is in Ripon: in c.1520, John Henryson was paid for making scaffaldes et sawyng seylyng bordes. Finally, in all the ceileing and partitions of a house in Lythe, in 1734, the inference is that ‘ceiling’ could be used on its own to mean the panelling. In 1653, a labourer in the North Riding village of Wass was accused of stealing fifteen seale-sparres: they were defined by Canon Atkinson as the battens to which the ceiling boards would be attached.