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, 4th ed. (1951), reprinted with revised addenda (1954), have not been included.

Achievement—In heraldry, the shield with helm, crest, mantling, supporters, etc.

Acroterion—In Classical architecture, a block on the apex or on the lower ends of a pediment, often carved.

Aedicule—Small representation of a Classical building, used for decorative purposes.

Agger—The consolidated artificial ridge carrying a Roman road.

Alabaster—Soft whitish limestone with veins of colour.

Amorino-I—A Cupid.

Anta-ae—In Classical architecture, a pilaster terminating a range of columns in the manner of a respond. In antis—placed in a line between a pair of antae.

'Antique work'—Renaissance ornament evoking the style of the ancients.

Apron—A panel, plain or decorative, below an architectural feature or composition.

Arch—Butting—having one complete and one incomplete arc.

Depressed—struck from a centre or centres very much lower than normal.

Flat—having a horizontal soffit.

Nodding—curving forward in advance of the plane of the springing.

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

Badge—In heraldry, a device used as a cognisance, as distinct from a coat-of-arms or an heraldic charge.

Ball Flower— An enrichment, usually repetitive, consisting of a balllike flower, carved in the hollow of a moulding.

Base Court—An outer courtyard.

Bastard Tuck—In brickwork, a false joint pointed in imitation of bonding.

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 and on the main axis of the related structure.

Dragon—in a ceiling, placed diagonally in a corner of a building to carry overhangs on the adjacent sides.

Benefactor's Table—Tablet or panel recording a benefaction.

Blind—Unpierced by any openings.

Bowtell—See Roll Moulding.

Brace—Diagonal timber strengthening a framework.

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

Cross—usually saltirewise, and with a halved joint at the intersection.

Double-bracing—having two braces, one above the other.

Down—between a post and a lower horizontal member.

Passing—of considerable length, passing across other members in a roof truss.

Up—between a post and a higher horizontal member.

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

Break-front—A composition in which the centre part projects forward.

Bricks—Gauged—voussoir-shaped.

Gault—commonly used to describe white or whitish-yellow bricks manufactured from gault or other clays.

Hollow—manufactured with central voids.

Rubbed—of soft fabric, abrased to special shapes after firing.

Brick-work—English bond—A method of laying bricks so that alternate courses on the face of the wall are composed of headers or stretchers only.

Flemish bond—laid in such a way that alternate headers and stretchers appear in each course on the wall face.

Tumbled—In a gable, triangular areas of brickwork laid at right angles to the pitch.

Bull-nosed—Round-ended.

Butterfly Head-dress—Woman's winged head dress of the 15th century.

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 an angle.

Diagonal—projecting diagonally at the corner of a building.

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

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 having sinuous curves.

Carstone—Dark brown ferruginous stone often used for buildings.

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

Chalk Marl—Argillaceous stratum just below the Lower White Chalk.

Chip Carving—Decoration of a surface formed by chiselling shallow depressions.

Clairvoyée—Structure designed to frame a particular view.

Clay Bat—Large rectangular blocks of unfired clay, used for building.

Close—Enclosure. In earthworks, an area enclosed by banks.

Clunch—Hard stratum of the Lower Chalk used as a material for building and sculpture.

Coprolite—A round stony fossil, supposed to be the petrified excrement of an animal, dug for fertiliser.

Crop-mark—Visible variations in vegetation caused by buried or levelled features.

Cross—In heraldry, a pale combined with a fesse, as the cross of St. George.

Crosslet—having each main arm crossed by a smaller arm.

Flory—having arms headed with fleurs-de-lis.

Formy—having arms widening from the centre and square at the ends.

Crossing—In a transeptal building, the central space about the intersection of the axes of the main range and the transepts.

Cross Tree—Horizontal crossed timbers supporting a vertical member at their intersection.

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.

Crown Tree—In a windmill, the framework which rotates about a fixed post.

Double Omega—Decoration consisting of two capital omegas conjoined at their heads.

Empark—To enclose land for a park.

Engaged Shaft—A column partly attached in its circumference to an adjacent feature.

English Bond—See Brick-work.

Engrailed—In heraldry, edged with a series of concave curves.

Estoile—In heraldry, a star-like charge with six or more wavy rays.

False Hammer Beam—Resembling a hammer beam but without a hammer post at the free end.

Field Stones—Rounded glacial erratics, occurring in the Drift and collected from the surface as a building material.

Fielded Panel—A panel with bevelled margins.

Flemish Bond—See Brick-work.

Foederati—In Roman Britain, settlers with military obligations.

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

Furlong—An area of the common field containing a number of adjacent strips running in the same direction.

Furniture—Accessories, fittings, especially of a window or door.

Gablet—A small gable. Smoke gablet—a small gable in the upper part of a hipped roof, for the outlet of smoke.

Garderobe—A small room containing a latrine.

Half-hipped Roof; Hipped Gable—A roof the ends of which are gabled in the lower part and hipped in the upper.

Hall—In a mediaeval house, the principal room which was often open to the roof.

Head—Flat—having a lintel made up of voussoirs.

Four-centred—struck from four centres.

Shouldered—having a lintel supported on laterally-placed corbels which obtrude into the opening.

Heel Gable—A gable which terminates one of two ranges, of similar height, meeting at right angles.

Hipped Gable—See Half-hipped Roof.

Hold-water Base—A base having a concave moulding, or mouldings, in its upper surface.

Hollow chamfer—A shallow concave moulding.

Hollow-way—A road or path between banks.

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

In Antis—See Anta.

Indent—Sinking, usually for a brass tablet.

Intercommonable—Subject to the common rights of more than one community.

Interlace—Decoration in relief, simulating woven or entwined bands.

Jetty—See Overhang.

Jewelled—Prism-like decoration in relief.

Keel Moulding—A moulding, in profile resembling the section through the hull and keel of a boat.

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

Label—In heraldry, a narrow horizontal strip (fillet) across the upper part of a shield from which hang broader oblong tags (points), usually three in number.

Lancet—A tall narrow window with arched head.

Linear Earthwork—A bank and ditch not returned round an enclosure.

Lombardic Capitals—Letters based on manuscript alphabets used in N. Italy during the Middle Ages.

Loop Light—Small slit window.

Louvre—Either a small lantern-shaped structure on a roof, or an opening provided with slats, for ventilation or for the escape of smoke.

'Low-side' window—In a church, a small window of unknown purpose, usually once shuttered.

Lynchet—A field scarp, usually produced by ploughing.

Negative—formed by cutting into a slope.

Positive—formed by the accumulation of soil on the face of a slope.

Strip—long narrow fields following the contour on the slopes of a hill.

Marginal Panes—Narrow panes of glass used as a border.

Mason's Mitre—In masonry or joinery, a method whereby a moulding or surface treatment is turned with a false mitre on one member to continue on another.

Mass Dial—Small sundial indicating canonical hours.

Mill—See Post Mill, Tower Mill.

Moat—A ditch partly or wholly surrounding an earthwork enclosure.

Motte—A roughly circular mound, usually surrounded by a ditch, forming the main feature of the earthworks of a Norman castle.

Muntin—In joinery or carpentry, the central vertical piece between two panels.

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

Niedermendig Lava—Grey vesicular lava from the Rhineland.

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

Open Field—Large arable field which constituted a unit in the croprotation system prior to enclosure.

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

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.

Overhang—The projection of the upper storey of a building beyond the plane of the wall face below. Also called a jetty.

Overmantel—Decorative feature or panel above a fireplace surround.

Overthrow—Decorative panelling or ironwork spanning an opening.

Palmette—In Classical architecture, a stylised palm-leaf ornament.

Pan—Infilling, usually of plastered clay, in a timber frame.

Pargetting—Plasterwork with relief or incised decoration.

Patera-ae—In Classical architecture, a dish-like ornament. In Roman archaeology, a broad flat saucer or dish. 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.

Open—in which the centre part of the horizontal members is omitted.

Shouldered—in which the entablature is continued laterally a short distance beyond the foot of the pediment.

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

Penannular—Forming an almost complete ring.

Petrifying Spring—A spring having a high content of carbonate of lime.

Pillar Piscina—A small pillar the top of which incorporates a piscina.

Pillow Mound—A low, elongated, artificial mound.

Plank Construction—Timber wall construction consisting of planks and muntins (q.v.).

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

Post—Swell-headed—in timber-framed construction, a post with an enlarged head to support a horizontal member.

Post Mill—A windmill in which the whole structure is built round a central post and turned to face the sails into the eye of the wind.

Pot Helmet—An open helmet of the 17th century.

Priest's Door—A small external doorway in the side wall of a chancel.

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

Staggered—one which does not align with its neighbour.

Putto-i—A representation of a small child.

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

Reeding—Decoration formed by parallel and adjacent convex mouldings.

Reel—Ornament resembling a line of bobbins.

Reticulated—Net-like; in tracery, a net pattern composed of circular, ogee or other shapes.

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

Riser—In earthworks, the steep face of a lynchet.

Roll Moulding—A prominent continuous convex moulding, also called a Bowtell.

Run-through Panelling—Panelling having small plain panels framed by continuous rails and short muntins.

Sash Window—Sliding—in which the movement of the glazed frames is horizontal.

Hung—in which the movement of the glazed frames is vertical.

Saw-tooth—Decoration formed by a succession of serrated facets.

Saxo-norman—A stylistic name applied to buildings and architectural features, of the second half of the 11th and the early 12th century, exhibiting both Saxon and Norman characteristics.

Scarp—In earthworks, the steep face, and counter-scarp, the less steep face, of an artificial bank or ditch.

Scratching—Incised marking, often an inscription.

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.

Selion—The land between two furrows in an open field.

Semy—In heraldry, the powdering of the field of a shield or a charge with small charges.

Service end or Wing—In a mediaeval house, that part off one end of the hall, containing the butteries, larders etc.

Shoulders—Of an arch, the parts immediately above the springing.

Situla—Bucket or bucket-shaped pot.

Solar—A parlour in a mediaeval house.

Spring Line—The line of a geological outcrop yielding springs.

Staddle Stones—Stones, often mushroom-shaped, supporting a raised structure.

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

Staircase—Close-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 to transfer the latter to a square section, hence stop-chamfered.

Broach—half-pyramidal.

Leaf—of foliate form.

Notched—with decorative cuts in the edges.

Run-out—dying out gradually.

Straight Joint—An unbonded junction between two structures.

Strainer—In joinery, a longitudinal member between the end rails of a table.

Strapwork—Decoration consisting of interlaced strap-like bands.

String. String-course—A projecting continuous horizontal course or moulding.

Strip—Long narrow field characteristic of open-field agriculture.

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.

Tower Mill—Windmill in which the lower part, the tower, containing the machinery is fixed and only the top or cap is turned to face the sails into the eye of the wind.

Tracery—Flowing—comprising compound curves.

Geometrical—comprising simple curves.

Net—See Reticulated.

Vertical—with predominantly vertical mullions.

Tread—In cultivations, the flat, formerly tilled, surface of a lynchet.

Trompe L'oeil—In painting, marquetry, etc. deceptive three-dimensional effect produced on a flat, or almost flat, surface.

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

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

Tumbled Gables—See Brick-work.

Underbuilt—Addition of a wall beneath an overhang (q.v.).

Vill—The equivalent of a parish or village, especially in Domesday Book references.

Wall Anchor—Metal plate or device against the surface of a wall at the end of a tie rod or fixing.

Wall Post—An upright timber against, or partly in, a wall and forming part of a roof structure.

Water-leaf—See Capital.

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

Weathering—A sloping surface for casting off water.

Yale—In heraldry, a composite animal resembling a spotted deer but with swivelling horns.