Glossary

GLOSSARY

Of the meaning attached to the technical terms used in the inventory. Terms for which a sufficient interpretation is given in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, 7th ed. (1982), have not been included.

Achievement – in heraldry, the shield with helm, crest, mantling, supporters, etc.

Apron – A penel, plain or decorative, below an architectural feature or composition.

Arch – Depressed – struck from a centre or centres well below the line of springing.

Flat – having a horizontal soffit.

Nodding –curved forwards in advance of the plane of the springing.

Architrave – Eared – having the framing mouldings extended laterally at the head and returned.

Banded masonry – Masonry laid in regular courses of different heights or of varying materials.

Barnack – A hard shelly building stone from the Upper Lincolnshire Limestone; used widely in the 12th and 13 th centuries and deriving its name from the village of Barnack.

Bay – The main vertical divisions of a building or feature defined by recurring structural members as in an arcade, a fenestrated elevation or a timber frame.

Beam – Axial – in a ceiling, placed centrally on the main axis of the related structure.

Cross – in a ceiling, placed centrally on the short axis of the related structure.

Intersecting – in a ceiling, combined axial and cross beams.

Benefactor's table – Tablet or panel recording a benefaction.

Blades – Principal curved members of a cruck truss.

Blind – Unpierced by any openings.

Brace – Diagonal timber strengthening a framework.

Arch – curved, usually between wall and roof timbers, and often being one of a pair.

Passing – of considerable length, passing across other members in the roof truss.

Brattishing – Upstanding ornamental cresting, particularly of repetitive leaf form.

Bricks – Rubbed – of soft fabric, abraded to special shapes after firing.

Buttress-es – Projecting support to a wall.

Angle – two meeting, or nearly meeting, at right angles at the corner of a building.

Clasping – clasping or encasing the angle.

Diagonal – projecting diagonally at the corner of a building.

Lateral – at the corner of a building and axial with one wall.

Canted window – Bay window with splayed sides.

Cap – A capital.

Capital – Cushion – cut from a cube with its lower angles rounded off to adapt it to a circular shaft.

Stiff-leaf – formed by a number of stylised leaves of lobed form.

Water-leaf – enriched with broad tapering leaves of sinuous form.

Casement – A wide concave moulding in window jambs, etc. Also the hinged opening part of a window.

Console – Scroll-shaped ornamental bracket.

Continuous sills – Window sills continued across the elevation to form a platband.

Cross wing – In a house, a wing at the end of, and at right angles to, the main range.

Crown post – In a roof truss, a central post between tie beam and collar.

Double depth – Of a house the plan of which consists of two parallel ranges of rooms; also known as Double Pile.

Encaged shaft – A column partly attached in its circumference to an adjacent feature.

Fielded panel – A panel with bevelled margins.

Fire window – Small window in the side or back of a wide fireplace.

Flush dormer – A dormer window the front of which is flush with the wall face below.

Foil – A leaf-shaped space defined by the cusping in an opening or panel.

Garderobe – A small room containing a latrine.

Gibbs surround – With large plain blocks interrupting a moulded architrave at intervals.

Glover – Small open turret on a dovecote for entry of birds.

Hall – In a medieval house, the principal room which was often open to the roof.

Head – Flat – having a rectangular head.

Four-centred – struck from cetnres.

Hollow chamfer – A shallow concave moulding.

Impost – The projection, often moulded, at the springing of an arch.

Indent – Sinking, usually for a brass plate.

Jetty – The projection of the upper storey of a building beyond the plane of the wall face below.

Jewelled – Prism-like decoration in relief.

Keel moulding – A moulding, with profile resembling the section through the hull and keel of a boat.

Key-block – Simulated keystone, often of wood.

King mullion – in a multi-light window, a mullion of greater thickness.

Kneeler – A corbel or bonding-stone strengthening a gable parapet or coping.

Lucarne – Small gabled window.

Lombardic capitals – Letters based on medieval manuscript alphabets of N. Italy.

Mouchette – In window tracery, a curved dagger-shaped opening.

Nail-head – Ornament, of pyramid form, resembling a nail head.

Nook-shaft– A column shaft in a recess in a jamb, splay or reveal.

Offset – The ledge where one vertical plane of a wall sets back above another.

Orders – In arches, concentric rings of voussoirs receding towards the opening.

Roman Doric – an architectural Order comprising a column, sometimes fluted, moulded capital and base, architrave, frieze with triglyphs, and cornice.

Tuscan – a simple Order, comprising an unfluted column, moulded capital and base, architrave, plain frieze, and cornice.

Oriel window – A projecting window, usually carried upon corbels or brackets; also the large projecting window lighting a hall.

Outshut – A subsidiary range parallel and contiguous to the main range of a building, and with a roof of single pitch.

Overdoor – Decorative panel above a doorway.

Overmantel – Decorative feature or panel above a fireplace surround.

Overthrow – Decorative panelling or ironwork spanning an opening.

Pargetting – Plasterwork with relief or incised decoration.

Patera-ae – In Classical architecture, a dish-like ornament. In Gothic architecture, a flower or lobed-leaf ornament, often square.

Pediment – Broken – in which the centre part of the raking cornice and the tympanum are omitted.

Pegging – In a timber-framed structure, dowelling with headless wooden pegs; hence pegholes.

Face-pegging – method of securing timbers by pegs alone, without the use of mortices and tenons.

Pindle –A fissile sandy limestone, used in the early 19th century as a facing material.

Plank-and-muntin– Timber wall construction consisting of vertical planks grooved into stout uprights.

Platband –A projecting flat horizontal band of masonry or brickwork, as distinct from a moulded string.

Post – Haunched – in timber-framed construction, a post with a bracket-like swelling on one face to carry a beam.

Potence – Revolving frame in a dovecote to take a ladder.

Purlin – Butt – one that butts against the face of a principal rafter.

Clasped – one that is held in notches between the collar beam and the principal rafter.

Collar – in a trussed roof, a horizontal beam running longitudinally beneath the collar beams.

Staggered – one which does not align with its neighbour.

Rail – In carpentry and joinery, the horizontal member of a framed construction.

Reeding – Decoration formed by parallel and adjacent convex mouldings.

Rere-dorter – Monastic latrine.

Ridge-and-furrow – Remains of former cultivation; initially strips of tilled land, with furrows on either side, raised by the action of ploughing.

Roll moulding – A prominent continuous convex moulding, also called a bowtell.

Sash window – Hung – in which the movement of the glazed frames is vertical.

Sliding – in which the movement of the glazed frames is horizontal.

Scratch-moulded panelling –Panelling having small plain panels with shallow incised mouldings on the framing.

Screen – In secular buildings, a partition separating the main space of a hall from the service end.

Screens Passage – the space at the service end of a hall between the screen and the end wall.

Service end or wing – In a medieval house, that part at one end of the hall containing the butteries, larders, etc.

Shoulders – Of an arch, the corbels supporting a lintel.

Stages – Divisions of a structure marked by distinct horizontal features.

Staircase – Closed string – with the raking supporting member(s) parallel-sided and housing the treads and risers.

Open or cut-string – with the raking supporting member(s) cut to the shape of the treads and risers.

Stand paten – A paten with a foot.

Stiff-leaf – See Capital.

Stop – 1. Block, often shaped or carved, terminating a projecting moulding such as a string or label.

Head – carved in the form of a human, animal or grotesque head.

Mask – with a pointed profile and chamfered sides.

2. The feature, at the end of a chamfer or moulding, shaped to transfer the latter to a square section, hence stop-chamfered.

Broach – half-pyramidal.

Leaf – of foliate form.

Run-out – dying out gradually.

Urn – with projecting feature of shaped profile.

Straight-joint – An unbonded junction between two structures.

Strapwork – Decoration consisting of interlaced strap-like bands.

String, string-course – A projecting continuous horizontal course or moulding.

Studs – The common uprights in timber-framed walls.

Studwork – Timber framework consisting largely of studs.

Swag – In architectural ornament, a festoon suspended from two points and carved to represent cloth or flowers and fruit.

Term – A pedestal tapering towards the base and usually supporting a bust.

Tracery – Flowing – comprising compound curves.

Geometrical – comprising simple curves.

Reticulated – comprising a net pattern composed of circular, ogee or other shapes.

Vertical – with predominantly vertical mullions.

Truss – An open structural framework, especially of a roof.

Closed – having the framework filled, so as to form a partition.

Tusked tenon – Tenon passing through mortice and secured by a peg on farther side of beam or rafter.

Wall-beam – beam lengthwise against a wall carrying a floor structure.

Wall-post – An upright against, or partly in, a wall and supporting a beam.

Water-holding base – A base having a concave moulding, or mouldings, in its upper surface.

Wave moulding – A compound moulding comprising a convex curve between two concave curves.

Weathering – A sloping surface for casting off water.