Glossary

GLOSSARY

Achievement—In heraldry, the shield accompanied by the appropriate external ornaments, helm, crest, mantling, supporters, etc. In the plural the term is also applied to the insignia of honour carried at the funerals and suspended over the monuments of important personages, comprising helmet and crest, shield, tabard, sword, gauntlets and spurs, banners and pennons.

Aedicule—A small temple or shrine, or a miniature representation of the same.

Agger—The earthen ridge carrying a Roman road.

Altar—The name used in the Inventory to distinguish pre-reformation stone altars from post-reformation Communion Tables of wood.

Apron—A plain or decorated panel below a window, or at the base of a wall-monument.

Arabesque—Decoration, in colour or low relief, with fanciful intertwining of leaves, scroll-work, etc.

Arcade—A range of arches carried on piers or columns. Blind arcade, a series of arches, sometimes interlaced, carried on shafts or pilasters against a solid wall.

Arch—The following are some of the most usual forms:

Equilateral—A pointed arch struck with radii equal to the span.

Flat or straight—Having the soffit horizontal.

Four-centred—A pointed arch of four arcs, the two outer and lower arcs struck from centres on the springing line and the two inner and upper arcs from centres below the springing line. For want of a better expression the term is also used of pointed door-heads, etc., in which the upper arcs are replaced by straight lines, the centres then being at infinity.

Lancet—A pointed arch, struck at the level of the springing, with radii greater than the span.

Nodding—An ogee arch curving also forward from the plane of the wall-face.

Ogee—A pointed arch of four or more arcs, the two uppermost being reversed, i.e., convex instead of concave to the base line.

Pointed or two-centred—Two arcs struck from centres on the springing line, and meeting at the apex with a point.

Relieving—An arch, generally of rough construction, placed in the wall above the true arch or head of an opening, to relieve it of the superincumbent weight.

Segmental—A single arc struck from a centre below the springing line.

Segmental-pointed—A pointed arch, struck from two centres below the springing line.

Skew—An arch spanning between responds not diametrically opposite one another.

Stilted—An arch with its springing line raised above the level of the imposts.

Three-centred, elliptical—Formed with three arcs, the middle or uppermost struck from a centre below the springing line.

Architrave—The lowest member of an entablature (q.v.); often adopted as a moulded enrichment to the jambs and head of a doorway or window-opening.

Arris—The sharp edge formed by the meeting of two surfaces.

Ashlar—Masonry wrought to an even face and with square edges.

Assarting—The grubbing up of trees and bushes from forest land, to make it arable.

Aumbry—Wall-cupboard, usually for sacred vessels in a church.

Bagshot Beds—A Tertiary geological formation consisting mainly of sands and grits with seams of clay.

Bailey—The courtyard of a castle.

Ball-flower—In architecture, a decoration, peculiar to the first quarter of the 14th century, consisting of a globular flower of three petals enclosing a small ball.

Barge-board—A board, often carved, fixed to the edge of a gabled roof a short distance from the face of the wall.

Barrow—A burial mound. Long barrow: an elongated burial mound of the Neolithic period. Bank barrow: a long barrow of exceptional length, resembling a length of bank. Round barrow: a burial mound, circular in plan, usually of the Bronze Age. For explanation of different types of round barrow see Dorset II, p. 422.

Bastion—A projection from the general outline of a fortress, from which the garrison is able to see, and defend by a flanking fire, the ground before the ramparts.

Bays—The main vertical divisions of the façade of a building; the archways of an arcade or the intercolumniations of a colonnade; also the divisions of a roof, marked by its principals (q.v.) which usually correspond with the bays of the façade, etc., below it.

Beading—A small rounded moulding.

Beaker—A pottery vessel or jar, characteristic of a culture introduced into Britain towards the end of the Neolithic period; hence Beaker culture or Beaker people. Bell beaker or 'B' beaker: the type of British beaker which most closely resembles widespread continental prototypes and which first appears here soon after 2000 B.c. Long-necked or 'A' beaker: an insular development first appearing c. 1800 B.c.

Berm—In earthworks, a ledge between a bank and its accompanying ditch or scarp.

Biconical Urn—A pottery vessel of the Middle Bronze Age, roughly biconical in outline, which in Dorset appears to be derived from Cornish biconical urns of the Early Bronze Age.

Billet—In architecture, an ornament used in the 11th and 12th centuries, consisting of short attached cylinders or rectangles with intervening spaces. In heraldry, a small upright oblong charge.

Bolection-moulding—A bold moulding raised above the general plane of the framework of a doorway, fireplace or panelling.

Bond—See brickwork.

Boss—A square or round projecting ornament, often covering the intersections of the ribs in a vault, panelled ceiling, roof, etc.

Brace—In roof construction, a subsidiary timber designed to strengthen the framing of a truss. Wind-brace: a subsidiary timber between the purlins and principals of a roof, designed to resist the pressure of the wind.

Bracket—A projecting flat-topped support, usually decorated on the underside; also, in open-string stairs, the spandrel or exposed triangular end of a step.

Brattishing—Ornamental cresting on the top of a screen, cornice, etc.

Bressummer—A beam spanning a broad opening and supporting an upper wall.

brickwork—The following terms are used:

Header—A brick laid so that the end appears on the face of the wall.

Stretcher—A brick laid so that the long side appears on the face of the wall.

English Bond—A method of laying bricks so that alternate courses on the face of the wall are composed of headers and stretchers.

Flemish Bond—A method of laying bricks so that alternate headers and stretchers appear in each course on the face of the wall.

Broach-stop—A half-pyramidal stop against a chamfer, effecting the change from chamfer to arris.

Bronze Age—The period which in Britain is divided and dated roughly as follows: Early Bronze Age, 1650 to 1350 B.C.; Middle Bronze Age, 1350 to 800 B.C.; Late Bronze Age, 800 to 600 B.c.

Bucket Urn—A pottery vessel of the Middle to Late Bronze Age with sides tapering downwards and often incurving at the top. The true bucket shape, with straight sides, is rare.

Buttress—Masonry or brickwork projecting from or built against a wall to give additional strength.

Angle-buttresses—Two meeting, or nearly meeting, at an angle of 90° at the corner of a building.

Clasping-buttress—One that clasps or encases an angle.

Diagonal-buttress—One placed against the right-angle formed by two walls, and more or less equiangular with both.

Flying-buttress—An arch or half-arch transmitting the thrust of a vault or roof from the upper part of a wall to an outer support.

Cable-moulding—A moulding carved in the form of a rope or cable.

Canons—The metal loops by which a bell is hung.

Carton-pierre—A patent composition cast in moulds to form fine decorative details for application to the surfaces of joinery, thus simulating carved woodwork; the process was introduced into Britain by Robert Adam, c. 1780.

Caryatid—Sculptured figure used as a column or support.

Casement Moulding—A wide and deep hollow moulding on the jambs and head of a window or doorway; usually characteristic of the 15th or 16th century.

Casement Window—One closed with a hinged lattice.

Castor Ware—A colour-coated ware made in potteries near Castor, Northants, and elsewhere from the late 2nd century A.D.

Causewayed Camp—A Neolithic enclosure bounded by a bank or banks, each with an external ditch interrupted at intervals by 'causeways' or lengths of undisturbed ground.

Celtic' Fields—Small, rectangular fields, usually bounded by lynchets, originating in the Bronze Age, but widespread in Romano-British times, especially in the south of England.

Chaînage—Bricks of contrasting colour bonded into a brick façade to form decorative vertical bands. As bonding requires the use of headers and stretchers in alternate courses the feature resembles a chain.

Chalcolithic—That period which in Britain is characterised by the first use of copper tools in a predominantly stone-age society, roughly 1800 to 1650 B.C.

Chalice—The name used in the Inventory to distinguish the prereformation type of communion cup with a small shallow bowl from the post-reformation cup with a larger and deeper bowl.

Chamfer—The small plane formed when an arris of stone or wood is cut away, usually at an angle of 45°. When the plane is concave it is termed a hollow chamfer.

Chantry—A foundation, usually supporting a priest, for the celebration of mass for the soul of the founder and of such others as he may direct.

Chevron—In heraldry, a charge resembling an inverted V. In architecture, a decorative form similar to the heraldic chevron and often used in a consecutive series.

Chip-carving—Simple geometrical patterns gouged on the surface of joinery; the work is characteristic of the 17th century.

Cinquefoil—See Foil.

Cist—A small burial chamber lined with stones or cut in natural subsoil, above or below ground level; it has no entrance.

Clearstorey—In a church that has colonnades, an upper storey with windows rising above the aisle roof. The term is applicable in secular architecture.

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

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

Collar-beam—In a roof, a horizontal beam framed to and serving to tie together a pair of rafters, some distance above wall-plate level.

Collared Urn—A type of pottery vessel with a deep rim, frequently found in association with cremation burials; it first appears in the Early Bronze Age (c. 1550 B.C.) and is largely a development of late Neolithic (Fengate) pottery.

Corallian Limestone—An oolitic limestone of the Upper Jurassic system, often containing much cominuted shell.

Corbel—A projecting stone or piece of timber for the support of a superincumbent feature. Corbel-table—A row of corbels, usually carved.

Cornbrash—In geology, a calcareous formation of the Middle Jurassic system consisting of a rubbly ferruginous limestone and clayey marl.

Counterscarp—The outer face or slope of the ditch of a fortification. Counterscarp bank—a small bank immediately beyond the counterscarp of a hill-fort or defensive work.

Cove—A concave moulding at the junction of wall and ceiling, or masking the eaves of a roof.

Cover-paten—A cover to a communion cup, used as a paten when inverted.

Crenelles—The openings in an embattled parapet.

Crockets—Carvings projecting at regular intervals from the sloping sides of spires, canopies, hood-moulds, etc.

Crop-mark—A trace of a buried feature revealed by differential growth of crops, best seen from the air.

Cross-ridge Dyke—A bank and ditch, or sometimes a ditch between two banks, crossing a ridge or a spur of high ground.

Cruck Truss—See Roofs.

Curtain—The connecting wall between the towers or bastions of a castle.

Cusps—The projecting points forming the foils in Gothic windows, arches, panels, etc.; they are sometimes ornamented at the ends (cusp-points) with leaves, flowers, berries, etc. Sub-cusps—cusps within the foils formed by larger cusping.

Dado—The protective or decorative treatment applied to the lower part of a wall-surface to a height, normally, of 3 to 4 feet. Dadorail—the moulding or capping at the top of the dado.

Diaper—All-over decoration of surfaces with reticulate and other patterns.

Dip-slope—Land surface developed on dipping strata; the rear slope of an escarpment.

Dog-tooth Ornament—A typical 13th-century carved ornament consisting of a series of pyramidal flowers of four petals; used to cover hollow mouldings.

Dormer—A sleeping recess contrived as a projection from the slope of a roof and having a roof of its own; it usually is unlighted, but occasionally it has small windows in the cheeks.

Dormer-window—A vertical window projecting from the slope of a roof, and having a roof of its own, as in a dormer.

Double Lynchet Track—A trackway running through fields on a slope and defined on either side by their lynchets; frequently associated with 'Celtic' fields.

Dressings—The stone or brickwork used about an angle, window, or other feature, when worked to a finished face, whether smooth, tooled or rubbed, moulded, or sculptured.

Eared (or Lugged) Architrave—Enrichment of an opening whereby the horizontal mouldings of the head continue beyond the sides of the vertical mouldings of the jambs and are returned to form a π-shaped feature.

Easter Sepulchre—Aedicule or recess, usually on the N. side of the chancel, in which the sacrament, chalices and reliquaries were enshrined during the three days before Easter in commemoration of Christ's entombment (cf. W.A.M., II (1855) 309).

Embattled—In architecture, a parapet with an indented outline comprising merlons and crenelles is said to be embattled.

Entablature—In classical architecture, the moulded horizontal capping of a wall, colonnade or opening. A full entablature consists of architrave, frieze and cornice.

Fan-vault—See Vaulting.

Fascia—A plain or moulded facing board.

Fielded Panel—A panel, usually of woodwork, with recessed and bevelled margins.

Finial—An ornament at the top of a pinnacle, gable, canopy, etc.

Foil (trefoil, quatrefoil, cinquefoil, multifoil, etc.)—A leaf-shaped space defined by the curve of the cusping in an opening or panel.

Foliate (capital, corbel, etc.)—Carved with leaf ornament.

Forest Marble—A Middle Jurassic geological formation comprising a hard flaggy oolitic limestone alternating with bands of shaly clay or marl.

Four-centred Arch—See Arch.

Furlong—An area of the open fields (q.v.) containing a number of adjacent strips extending in the same direction.

Gadroon Ornament—A series of convexities and/or concavities forming the edge of a prominent moulding in stone, wood or metalwork.

Garderobe—Wardrobe. Antiquarian usage applies the word to a latrine.

Gargoyle—A carved projecting figure pierced or channelled to carry off rainwater from the roof of a building.

Gauging—In brickwork, bringing every brick exactly to a certain form by cutting and rubbing.

Globular Urn—A type of pottery vessel of the Middle or Late Bronze Age, probably of foreign derivation and regarded as intrusive into southern Britain; it has a spherical body with a constriction above, and a more or less vertical neck.

Greensand—A Cretaceous sandstone containing the green iron-bearing mineral glauconite.

Grisaille—Formal patterns painted in greyish tints, on wall surfaces or on glass windows.

Groined Vault—See Vaulting.

Guilloche—A geometrical ornament consisting of two or more intertwining bands forming a series of circles or other regular shapes.

Hall—The principal room of a mediaeval house, normally open to the roof.

Ham Hill Stone—An oolitic freestone found within the Upper Lias (Lower Jurassic); it takes its name from a major quarry area near Yeovil.

Heathstone—A brown, ferruginous gritstone found within the Bagshot Beds; also called Carstone.

Hill-Fort—A defensive enclosure of the Iron Age, fortified with rampart and ditch, single or multiple, usually on dominant ground.

Hipped Roof—A roof with sloped instead of vertical ends. Half-hipped: a roof in which the ends are partly vertical and partly sloped.

Hold-water Base—A column base with a deep concave moulding in the upper surface.

Hollow Way—A sunken track, caused either by wear or by the raising of the ground on each side.

Hood-mould—A projecting moulding on the face of a wall above an arch, doorway, or window; it may follow the form of the arch or it may be square in outline. Also called Label.

Hornwork—An outwork of an earthwork enclosure, such as a hillfort, often consisting of a single arm thrown out to protect an entrance.

Hut Circle—Footings or other remains of the walls of a circular dwelling, usually prehistoric.

Impost—The projection, often moulded, at the springing of an arch, upon which the arch appears to rest.

Incense Cup—A very small ritual or symbolic vessel, often found in association with urn burials of the Early Bronze Age and particularly of the Wessex culture.

Indent—The sinking in a tomb slab for a monumental brass.

Interlace—Stone decoration in relief simulating woven or entwined bands, in England usually associated with the period before the Norman Conquest.

Iron Age—The period which in Britain is taken to date from c. 600 B.C. to the Roman Conquest, A.D. 43.

Jamb—The side of an archway, doorway, window or other opening.

Jetty—The projection of the upper storey of a building beyond the vertical plane of the lower storey.

Joggling—The method of cutting the adjoining faces of the voussoirs of an arch with rebated, zigzagged or wavy surfaces to provide a key.

Keel Moulding—A stone moulding, in profile resembling the crosssection through the keel of a boat.

King-post—The middle vertical post in a roof-truss. See Roofs.

Kneeler—The stone at the foot of a gable, on which the inclined coping stones rest.

Label—See Hood-mould.

Lancet—A narrow window with a pointed head, typical of the 13th century.

Lierne-vault—See Vaulting.

Lombardic Lettering—Lettering, based on N. Italian manuscripts, often used by mediaeval bellfounders.

Loop—A small narrow window, usually unglazed.

Louvre—A lantern-like structure on the roof of a hall or other building, with openings for ventilation or for the escape of smoke; it is usually crossed by sloping slats (called louvre-boards), to exclude rain. Louvre-boards are also used in belfry windows.

Lynchets—Cultivation scarps and terraces on hillsides, the positive element comprising the accumulation of plough soil from uphill, the negative element being cut away by the plough and moved downhill.

Mathematical Tiles—Revetment for walls of timber or cob, consisting of hung tiles wherein each tile is so shaped that, when pointed with mortar, the exposed surface resembles brickwork.

Merlon—The solid part of an embattled parapet between the crenelles.

Mill-rind—The iron fixed to the centre of a millstone. A heraldic charge.

Misericord—A bracket, often elaborately carved, on the underside of the hinged seat of a choir-stall. When the seat is turned up the bracket comes into position to support the occupant during long periods of standing.

Motte—In earthworks, a steep flat-topped mound, forming the main feature of an 11th or 12th-century castle; originally often surmounted by a timber tower and usually associated with a Bailey.

Muntin—In joinery or carpentry, an intermediate upright between panels, tenoned into or stopping against upper and lower rails.

Nail-head—Architectural ornament of small pyramidal form used extensively in 12th-century work.

Narrow Rig—A form of ridge-and-furrow (q.v.) with ridges up to 5 yds. across; it is usually of 18th or 19th-century date.

Neolithic—Of the later Stone Age; in Britain probably from about 3400 to 1800 B.C.

Nodding Arch—See under Arch.

Ogee—A compound curve of two parts, one convex, the other concave; a double-ogee moulding has two ogee profiles side by side, the convexities adjacent to one another.

Open Fields—Large unenclosed fields of mediaeval and later date, usually held in common and cultivated on a strip system.

Orders—In an arch, the receding concentric rings of voussoirs.

Oriel—A projecting bay-window, sometimes carried upon corbels or brackets; also a compartment or embrasure with a large window opening off one side of a mediaeval hall.

Ovolo Moulding—A convex moulding of rounded profile.

Palladian Window—A three-light window with a round-headed middle light and square-headed lights on either side, the side lights having flanking pilasters, and small entablatures which form the imposts to the arch of the centre light. See also Venetian Window.

Park Pale—A fence around a park. Mediaeval park pales usually survive as banks with inner ditches.

Paten—A shallow vessel for holding the Bread or Wafer at the celebration of the Holy Communion.

Patera—A flat disc-shaped ornament applied to a frieze, moulding, or cornice; in Gothic work it commonly takes the form of a fourlobed leaf or flower.

Pediment—A low-pitched gable used in classical architecture above a portico, at the end of a building, or above doors, windows, niches, etc.; sometimes the apex is omitted, forming a broken pediment, or the horizontal members are omitted, forming an open pediment.

Pelican-in-piety—A pelican shown, according to the mediaeval legend, feeding her young upon drops of blood which she pecks from her own breast.

Piscina—A basin in a church, for washing the sacred vessels and provided with a drain; it is generally set in or against the S. wall of the chancel, but sometimes is sunk in the pavement.

Plank-and-Muntin partition—A wooden division between two rooms, composed of vertical planks alternating with, and tongued into, grooved upright posts.

Plat-band—A projecting horizontal band of plain masonry or brickwork, as distinct from a moulded string-course.

Podsolisation—A leaching process in sandy soils, resulting in impoverishment of the top-soil and the deposit of iron salts at a lower level.

Poppy-head—Type of finial commonly found at the heads of bench-standards or desks in churches; generally it is carved with foliage and flowers and resembles a fleur-de-lis.

Portland Stone—A fine white oolitic limestone of the Upper Jurassic system.

Presbytery—The part of a church, usually reserved for priests, in which is placed the communion table.

Principals—The main as opposed to the common rafters of a roof.

Pulpitum—A screen in a monastic church, dividing the monastic choir from the nave.

Pulvinated Frieze—In Classical and Renaissance architecture, a frieze having a convex or bulging profile.

Purbeck Marble—A shelly limestone of the Upper Jurassic system, quarried in S. Dorset and capable of being polished.

Purlin—In roof construction, a horizontal timber resting on the principal rafters of a truss and forming an intermediate support for the common rafters. For Collar-purlin, see King-post under Roofs.

Quarry—In windows, a small pane of glass, often lozenge-shaped. In pavements, a square tile.

Quatrefoil—A four-petalled flower. See also Foil.

Queen-posts—A pair of vertical posts in a roof-truss, equidistant from the centre line of the roof. See also under Roofs.

Quoin—The dressed stones at the angle of a building, or distinctive brickwork in this position. Normally the quoin stones are long and short in alternate courses; if they are of equal length it is called a French quoin.

Rail—A horizontal member in the framing of a door, screen, panelling or other woodwork.

Reading Beds—A Tertiary geological formation consisting of sand and mottled red and white clay, with bands of concretionary ironstone and of flints.

Rear-arch—The arch, on the inside of a wall, spanning a doorway or window-opening.

Rere-dorter—A monastic latrine.

Reredos—A screen of stone or wood at the back of an altar, usually enriched.

Responds—The half-columns or piers at the ends of an arcade, or abutting a single arch.

Reveal—The internal side surface of a recess, doorway or window opening.

Ridge (or Rig)-and-Furrow—Remains of cultivation of mediaeval and later date; initially strips of arable land, usually 3 to 12 yds. wide, thrown into ridges by the action of ploughing, leaving furrows between them.

Rinceaux—Decoration composed of a sinuous stem between parallel margins, with a coiled branch in each interstice, usually with acanthus enrichment.

Roll-moulding—A continuous convex moulding cut upon the edges of stone, woodwork, etc.

Rood (Rood-beam, Rood-screen, Rood-loft)—A cross or crucifix. The Great Rood was set up at the E. end of the nave with accompanying figures of St. Mary and St. John; it was generally carved in wood, and fixed on the loft or head of the rood-screen, or on a special beam (the Rood-beam), reaching from wall to wall. Sometimes the rood was merely painted on the wall above the chancel-arch or on a closed wood partition or tympanum in the upper half of the arch. The Rood-screen is the open screen spanning the E. end of the nave, shutting off the chancel; in the 15th century a narrow gallery was often constructed above the cornice to carry the rood and other images and candles, and it was also used as a musicgallery. This loft was approached by a staircase (and occasionally by more than one), either of wood or built in the wall, wherever most convenient, and, when the loft was carried right across an aisled building, the intervening walls of the nave were often pierced with narrow archways. Many roods were destroyed at the Reformation and their removal, with the rood loft, was ordered in 1561.

Roofs—Collar-beam—a principal-rafter roof with collar-beams (q.v.) connecting the principals.

Cruck—having a truss with principals springing from below the level of the wall-plate. The timbers are usually curved, but examples with straight timbers are recorded.

Hammer-beam—in which cantilevered beams instead of tie-beams, braced from a level below the wall-plates, form the basis of construction.

King-post and Collar-purlin—a trussed-rafter roof with king-posts standing on the tie-beams to carry a centre purlin supporting the collars.

King-post and Ridge—in which king-posts standing on tie-beams or collar-beams directly support the ridge.

Mansard—characterised in exterior appearance by two pitches, the lower steeper than the upper.

Principal Rafter—with rafters at intervals, of greater scantling than the common rafters and framed to form trusses; they are normally called by the name of the connecting member used in the truss, tie-beam or collar-beam.

Queen-post—with two vertical or nearly vertical posts standing on the tie-beam of a truss and supporting a collar-beam or the principal rafters.

Scissors-truss—as trussed-rafter, but with crossed braces instead of collars.

Tie-beam—a principal rafter roof with a simple triangulation of a horizontal beam linking the lower ends of the pairs of principals to prevent their spread.

Trussed-rafter—in which all the timbers in the slopes are common rafters of uniform size, and each pair of rafters is connected by a collar-beam, which is often braced. At intervals, pairs of rafters may be tenoned into a tie-beam.

Wagon—a trussed-rafter roof with curved braces, forming a semicircular arch, springing from wall-plate level. The soffit is usually plastered, and the longitudinal members, and transverse members at intervals are decorated with mouldings which project below the plaster to form coffers.

Rubble—Walling of rough unsquared stones or flints. Coursed Rubble —rubble walling with the stones or flints very roughly dressed and levelled up in courses.

Rustication—Masonry in which only the margins of the stones are worked; the word is also used for any masonry where the joints are emphasised by mouldings, grooves, etc. Rusticated columns are those in which the shafts are interrupted by square blocks of stone, or by broad projecting bands.

Samian Ware—A common table ware of the Roman period, mostly of Gaulish origin, with a glossy surface, generally red in colour. Also known as terra sigillata.

Scarp—A short, abrupt slope, usually artificial. In earthwork fortifications, the downward slope in front of the defenders. See also Strip Lynchets.

Screen—In secular buildings, the wooden 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.

Sedilia—The seats, on the S. side of the chancel, used by the ministers during the Mass.

Sill—The lower horizontal member of a window or door-frame; the stone, tile or wood base below a window or door-frame, usually with a weathered surface projecting beyond the wall-face to throw off water. In timber-framed walls, the lower horizontal member into which the studs are tenoned.

Situlate—A term used to describe the form of vessels, chiefly of pottery, with straight tapering sides, high shoulders and short everted necks, characteristic of the earlier phases of the Iron Age in Britain.

Slip-tiles—Tiles moulded with a design in intaglio which is filled in, before burning, with clay of a different colour.

Soil-mark—A trace of a levelled or buried feature revealed by differences in colour or texture of the soil, usually in ploughed land.

Solar—In a mediaeval house, a chamber occupied by the master, usually adjoining the dais end of the hall.

Spandrel—The space between the outside curve of an arch and the surrounding rectangular framework or moulding, or the space between the outside curves of two adjoining arches and a moulding above them. Also, in open-string staircases, the bracket or triangular exposed end of a step, often decorated with a scroll.

Splat—A flat board with shaped sides used in place of a turned and moulded member, often having the outline of a baluster.

Springing-line—The level at which an arch springs from its supports.

Squinch—An arch thrown across the angle between two walls to support an obliquely set superstructure, such as the base of a dome or spire.

Squint—An aperture pierced through a wall to allow a view of an altar from places whence it could otherwise not be seen.

Staircases—A close-string staircase is one having a raking member into which the treads and risers are morticed. An open-string staircase has the raking member cut to the shape of the treads and risers. A dog-legged staircase has adjoining flights running in opposite directions, with a common newel. A well-staircase has stairs rising round a central opening more-or-less as wide as it is long.

Stile—The vertical member of a timber frame, into which are tenoned the ends of the rails or horizontal pieces.

Stops—Blocks terminating mouldings or chamfers in stone or wood; stones at the ends of labels, string-courses, etc., against which the mouldings finish, frequently carved to represent shields, foliage, human or grotesque masks; also, plain or decorative, used at the ends of a moulding or a chamfer to form the transition from the angle to the square.

Stoup—A receptacle to contain holy water. Those remaining are usually in the form of a deeply-dished stone set in a niche or on a pillar near a church doorway.

Strapwork—Decoration consisting of strap-like bands, often interlaced, characteristic of the late 16th and early 17th century.

String-course—A projecting horizontal band in a wall, usually moulded.

Strip Fields—Narrow fields characteristic of mediaeval and later openfield agriculture.

Strip Lynchets—Long, narrow cultivation terraces (treads), usually open-ended, with scarps (risers) above or below. They are of mediaeval and later date and represent the extension of strip cultivation, usually the open fields, on hillsides.

Studs—The common posts or uprights in timber-framed walls.

Swag—An architectural ornament; a festoon suspended at both ends and carved to represent cloth, or flowers and fruit.

Table-tomb—A chest-like funeral monument, usually with panelled sides and a flat top, sometimes with a recumbent effigy on top; occasionally without sides, the top being supported on legs.

Tas-de-charge—The lower courses of a vault or arch, laid in horizontal courses.

Tessera—A small cube of stone, glass, marble etc., used in mosaic.

Thumb-gauging—An ornamental top-edge to a ridge-tile, made with the thumb before the tile is baked.

Tie-beam—The horizontal transverse beam in a roof, tying together the feet of opposed rafters to counteract thrust.

Timber-framed Building—A building in which the walls are built of open timbers and the interstices are filled in with brickwork or lath and plaster ('wattle and daub'); the whole often covered with plaster or boarding.

Tooling—Dressing or finishing a masonry surface with an axe or other tool, usually in parallel lines.

Touch—A soft black marble quarried near Tournai.

Tracery—The ornamental work in the head of a window, screen, panel, etc., formed by curving and interlacing of bars of stone or wood, grouped together, generally over two or more lights or bays.

Transom—A horizontal bar of stone or wood across a window-light.

Trefoil—See Foil.

Trellis, Treillage—Lattice-work of light wood or metal bars.

Triforium—In larger churches, an arcaded wall-passage at about midwall height, between the aisle arcades and the clearstorey. A large gallery the full width of the aisle below is termed a Tribune.

Truss—A number of timbers framed together to bridge a space, designed to be self-supporting and to carry other timbers. The trusses of a roof are generally named after a peculiar feature in their construction, such as King-post, Queen-post, Hammer-beam, Cruck; see Roofs.

Tufa (Calcareous)—Spongy deposit formed by the action of water on limestone and resembling volcanic lava; often used in vaulting on account of its light weight.

Tympanum—The triangular or segmental field in the face of a pediment or in the head of an arch.

Vaulting—An arched ceiling or roof of stone or brick, sometimes imitated in wood and plaster. Barrel Vaulting is a continuous vault unbroken in its length by cross-vaults. A Groined Vault (or Cross-vaulting) results from the intersection of simple vaulting surfaces. A Ribbed Vault is a framework of arched ribs carrying the cells that cover in the spaces between them. One bay of vaulting, divided into four quarters or compartments, is termed quadripartite; but often the bay is divided longitudinally into two subsidiary bays, and the vaulting bay is thus divided into six compartments and is termed sexpartite. Increased elaboration is given by tiercerons, secondary ribs springing from the wall-supports and rising to a point other than the centre, and liernes, tertiary ribs that do not spring from the wall-supports, but cross from main rib to main rib. In fan-vaulting numerous ribs rise from the springing in equal curves, diverging equally in all directions, giving fan-like effects when seen from below.

Venetian Window—Similar to Palladian window.

Vesica Piscis—An oval frame, pointed at top and bottom, common in mediaeval art.

Vice—A small circular stair.

Voussoirs—The stones forming an arch.

Wagon-roof—See under Roofs.

Wall-plate—A timber laid lengthwise on the wall to receive the ends of the rafters and other joists. In timber-framing, the studs are tenoned into it.

Wave-moulding—A compound moulding formed by a convex curve between two concave curves.

Weathering (to sills, tops of buttresses, etc.)—A sloping surface for casting off rainwater.

Wessex Culture—A group of rich Early Bronze Age burials, largely confined to the Wessex area, found almost entirely in round barrows and associated with exotic grave goods of gold, amber, faience, etc.

Windmill Hill—A causewayed camp in Wiltshire; a type-site of the earlier Neolithic period which gives its name to a culture and to a pottery tradition characterised by several regional types, e.g. Hembury, Abingdon, Whitehawk, etc.