Buildings
Glossary of Architectural TermsGlossary of Architectural Terms
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ABUTMENT Solid masonry placed to counteract the lateral thrust of a vault or arch and so give the arch or vault strength. The aircraft hangars at K & M Hauliers, Hucknall require this kind of strengthening to hold up the large roofs wide enough for airplane wings.
AEDICULE An architectural surround, consisting usually of two columns or pilasters supporting a pediment. Literally means 'little building'. The Church of St. Katherine, Teversal, contains an alabaster memorial to Sir Francis Molyneux surrounded by an aedicule.
AISLE The main aisle runs laterally down the nave of a church. It is divided from the rest of the nave by rows of pillars or columns, which support the roof or an upper wall containing windows (called a clearstory). Other aisles may run off from the main aisle in larger churches.
ALABASTER A compacted variety of sulphate of lime, or gypsum, of fine texture. Usually white and translucent,
but sometimes yellow, red or grey. Often carved into vases, busts, and memorial tablets in churches (e.g. at St. Mary Magdalene,
Sutton).
Supposedly named after Alabastron, a town in Egypt, near which it was common.
ALTAR A structure found in churches before which the priest recites divine offices and upon which the Eucharist Mass is celebrated. Often elevated, covered with a cloth, and typically a table in stone or wood.
ALTARPIECE A panel, painted or sculptured, situated above and behind an altar. Sometimes made of three panels hinged together so that it can be folded up, when it is called a triptych.
AMBULATORY An aisle around the apse at the east end of a church. None of the listed building churches in Ashfield are big enough to contain an ambulatory, but the term is common in church architecture and so is here for completeness.
APSE A singular and semi-circular recess, usually at the east end of a church. See ambulatory above.
ARCADE A series of arches supporting or attached to a church wall.
ARCH A structure forming the curved, pointed, or flat upper edge of an open space and supporting the weight above it, as in a bridge or doorway.
ASHLAR Worked stone with flat surface, usually of regular shape and square edges. As opposed to rough stone, which is not squared off. Due to its expense, you will often find buildings made of rough stone or rubble with quoins of Ashlar at the corners of the building, often laid alternately with their long-side and short side facing out; this is a common feature of Regency architecture.
AUMBRY A small cupboard recessed into the wall of a chucrh near the altar. Used for keeping sacred vessels and vestments. As an example, the Parish Church of St. Andrew, Skegby, has an aumbry.
BALUSTER A short post or pillar in a series that supports a rail, forming a balustrade. May be curved or straight.
BATTER An inclined face of wall; hence battered. The Sutton war memorial is described as a battered square pedestal, not because it has been knocked around, but because it narrows slightly from the base to the top.
BAY A subdivision of the interior space of a building. In Romanesque and Gothic churches, the transverse arches and piers of the arcade divide the building into bays.
BAY , BOW and ORIEL windows These windows project out from the front or side of a house. Oriel windows generally project from an upper story, supported by a bracket. Bay windows are angled projections that rise up from the ground on the first floor. Bow windows are rounded projections, often formed of the window glass itself.
BLIND ARCH An arch applied to a wall for decorative purposes, without openings between the arches.
BLIND ARCADE A row of decorative arches that is attached to a wall surface and has no real openings.
BRICK A molded rectangular block of clay baked by the sun or in a kiln until hard and used as a building
and paving material. Most bricks used for buildings in Ashfield are of a warm, red colour.
Early in history, bricks were hand-made and costly to distribute, and so only the most wealthy could afford to build their
houses with them. Consequently, most of the older houses in Ashfield are constructed of the local sandstone and limestone.
Only prestigious buildings such as Felley Priory in Ashfield are constructed of brick, and then mostly just the facing of
the walls with rubble behind.
The coming of the canals and railways to Ashfield altered the cost of transporting bricks, and industrailisation brought down
the cost of manufacture. In addition, the owners of the coal-mines sunk in the area had leases that allowed them to manufacture
bricks from any layers of clay they came across when digging the shafts (with a royalty payable to the land-owners, usually
the Dukes of Portland). And so houses built by the coal-mines to accomodate the influx of workers were constructed of bricks
made from clay dug out when sinking the shafts.
BUTTRESS A mass of stone or brick built against, or as part of a wall, to provide additional strength to it. Common on the outside of churches in Ashfield, but also on other structures, such as the pinfold at Skegby.
CAPITAL The top part of a pillar or column.
CASEMENT A metal or wooden framed window that is hinged to open outward or inward.
CATSLIDE ROOF A pitched roof covering one side of a building and continuing at the same pitch over a rear extension. Cruck cottage at Skegby has a catslide roof.
CHAMFER A diagonal surface made when the sharp edge (or arris) of a stone block is cut away, usually
at an angle of 45 degrees to the other two surfaces. A bevelled edge.
If the diagonal plane on two chamfered blocks are placed together so that there is a groove between them, it is called a hollow
chamfer.
CHANCEL The area around the altar of a church reserved for the clergy and sometimes the choir, often enclosed by a lattice or railing.
CHOIR The space reserved for the clergy in the church, usually east of the transept but, in some instances, extending into the nave.
CENOTAPH A monument erected in honour of a dead person or persons whose remains lie elsewhere. Here in
Britain, often represented by a memorial monument to the fallen of the two World Wars. The war memorials at Hucknall, Kirkby,
Sutton and Huthwaite are all cenotaphs.
Derives from the Greek words 'kenos', empty, and 'taphos', tomb.
CHEVRON A 'zigzag' pattern characteristic of Romanesque decoration that is often carved around pillars, arches and doorways.
CLERESTORY or CLEARSTORY The upper story of the nave, transepts, and choir of a church,
containing windows, and rising above the aisle roofs. Designed to bring light into the church, and to relieve the weight on
the walls and arches.
Many of the old churches in Ashfield have clerestories.
Also, an upper storey of windows to bring light into a factory workshop (e.g. the Hangars at Hucknall now occupied by K &
M Hauliers).
CLOSE STUDDING The division of a wall into narrow panels by vertical studs In timber framed buildings. As an example, Cruck cottage at Skegby has close studded panels.
COMPOUND PIER A pier with several shafts attached or detached, or half-shafts against the faces of it. Compound piers have angular pieces separating the rolls, clustered piers do not.
COMPOUND PILLAR A pillar that is either made up of a solid core surrounded by a cluster of shafts, or is simply a cluster of shafts.
COPING Stones, usually large and hard-wearing, placed at the top of for example walls, in order to take
the brunt of the weather and protect the more delicate stone-work below.
Derived from the name of an ecclesiastical vestment worn over a surplice to protect the delicate lace-work, and ultimately
from the Latin word for cloak ('cappa').
CORBEL A bracket of stone, wood, brick, or other building material, projecting from the face of a wall
and generally used to support a cornice or arch.
The word comes from the Latin word for raven, corvus, because of the similarity to the shape of a raven's beak. Corbels are
often carved with decoration, especially in churches. Thus you might get a 'foliate corbel', i.e. a bracket with leaf-like
decoration, which support the rafter arches of the roof in St Wilfrid's church, Kirkby.
COLUMN A vertical weight-carrying architectural member, circular in cross section and consisting of a base (sometimes omitted), a shaft, and a capital.
CORNICE Any projecting ornamental molding that finishes or crowns the top of a building, wall, arch, etc.
COURSED A continuous layer of building material, such as brick or tile, on a wall or roof of a building.
COURSED RUBBLE Wall made with stones or flints levelled up in courses.
COVING A concave surface forming a junction between a ceiling and a wall.
CRENELLATED Having repeated square indentations like those in a battlement on a castle. The parapets at the top of the towers of the Churches of St Katherine, Teversal; the two St. Mary Magdalene churches; St. Helen's Church, Selston; and St. Michael and All Angels, Underwood, all have crenellations.
CROSSING The space in a cruciform church formed by the intersection of the nave and the transept.
CROSSING SQUARE The area in a cruciform church that is formed by the intersection (crossing) of a nave and transept of equal width.
CRUCIFORM Cross-shaped. Most often used to describe churches, with the nave forming the body of the cross, the altar and choir at the top(usually to the east), and the transept forming the arms of the cross.
CRUCK A pair of timbers that act as the principal members for a roof. Represented in Ashfield at Cruck Cottage in Skegby.
CRYPT A vaulted underground room beneath a church which may be used either as a burial place or for storage.
CUPOLA A dome, usually small, topping a roof or turret.
There is a copper one on top of the central building of the Houses of Rest for Miners, Hucknall.
DADO The finishing (often with panelling) of the lower part of a wall, usually in a classical interior;
in origin a formalized continuous pedestal.
Dado rail : the moulding along the top of the dado.
DENTIL One of a series of small blocks used to form an ornamental row; the collective term is dentillations, or used to describe a decoration, e.g. dentillated eaves, which can be seen on Annesley Lodge.
DORMER A window set vertically into a small gable projecting from a sloping roof. Also, sometimes refres to the gable holding such a window.
DRESSED STONE Blocks of stone that have been trimmed and given a smooth face, i.e. ashlar stone.
DRESSING Carved stonework around openings.
EAVES That part of a sloping roof which is overhanging.
ELEVATION One of the external faces of a building; also, an architect's drawing of a facade, set out to scale.
EMBRASURE A splayed opening in a wall that frames an opening.
FACADE The front of a building.
FENESTRATION The design and placement of windows in a building.
FINIAL A sculptured ornament, often in the shape of a leaf or flower, at the top of a gable, pinnacle,
or similar structure.
A common feature of Victorian architecture, and so many examples can be found on buildings in Ashfield dating from that era.
FLEMISH BOND In brickwork, a bond in which each course (row) consists of headers (butt end) and stretchers (long side) laid alternately, each header being centered on the stretcher above and below it.
FLUTE or FLUTING Vertical channeling, roughly semicircular in cross section and used pricipally on columns and pillasters.
FLYING BUTTRESS A free-standing buttress linked to a church wall by an arch or part of an arch that serves to transmit the outward thrust of the wall to the buttress, thus relieving strain on the walls. Allows churches to be built very tall in the Gothic and Perpendicular styles.
FOLIATED Carved with leaves.
FONT A basin for holding baptismal water in a church.
FRENCH DOOR or WINDOW A tall casement window that reaches to the floor and opens like a door. It is a popular, modern, feature that brings more light into a home.
FRIEZE A decorative horizontal band, as along the upper part of a wall in a room.
GABLE The generally triangular section of wall at the end of a double-pitched roof, occupying the space
between the two slopes of the roof. By extension, sometimes refers to the whole end wall of a building or wing having a pitched
roof.
May also refer to a triangular, usually ornamental architectural section, as one above an arched door or window.
GALLERY The second story of an ambulatory or aisle. Also a long passage or room.
GARGOYLE A grotesque carving, usually in the form of a human or animal, at the end of a spout designed to carry rainwater clear of the wall of a building. Many of the listed building churches in Ashfield have gargoyles to be spotted by the keen-eyed.
GARRET A room on the top floor of a house, typically under a pitched roof. May also be used as a synonym for an attic.
GEORGIAN The period during the reign of the four Georges (1714-1830). In architecture it saw the rise of Palladianism; the styles of Robert Adam; the fashions for Rococo, Chinoiserie, Gothick and Hindoo. It also embraced early Gothic and Greek revivals and Neoclassicism.
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE A style of architecture that was prevalent in Western Europe from about 1200 until
1550. In England, Gothic is normally divided into three succeeding phases - Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular.
Some of the characteristic features of this school of architecture are; pointed arches (lancets); tall, slender pillars; flying
buttresses; and large windows often with ornate tracery.
The Victorians revived and exaggerated the Gothic style, and many of the churches renovated or built in Ashfield during the
Nineteenth Century have features of Victorian Gothic.
GROINED A roof with sharp edges at intersection of cross-vaults.
GROTESQUE A kind of ornament used in antiquity consisting of representations of medallions, sphinxes,
foliage, and imaginary creatures.
St. Wilfrid's church, Kirkby, has many examples of grotesques, depicting people, symbols of the apostles, and dragons.
GUTTER On a building, a trough fixed under or along the eaves for draining rainwater from a roof.
HAMMER BEAM A short horizontal beam, usually made of wood, extending from the top of a masonry wall outward
towards the center of the enclosed space, but not completely traversing it. The projecting end is usually connected to the
roof with a diagonal brace.
The United Reform church in Sutton has false hammer beams for decorative effect.
HATCHMENT A lozenge-shaped panel painted with armorial bearings, used in funeral ceremonies and often
afterwards displayed in a church.
The Church of St. Katherine, Teversal, has a rare set of hatchments.
HEADER A brick laid in a wall so that only its end appears on the face of the wall. To add a varied appearance to brickwork, headers are alternated with "stretchers," bricks laid full length on their sides.
HOOD An arched covering; when used to throw off rainwater, called hood-mould.
IMPOST The uppermost part of a column or pillar supporting an arch.
JAMB A vertical post supporting a window frame or doorway.
JOIST A timber stretched from wall-to-wall to support floorboards.
KEYSTONE A wedge-shaped or tapered stone placed at the top of an arch or vault. In vaulting it occurs at the intersection of the ribs of a ribbed vault.
KNEELER A large approximately triangular stone at the foot of a gable, cut to have a horizontal bed and a top conforming, wholly or in part, to the slope of the gable.
LANCET or LANCET WINDOW A long, narrow window with a sharply pointed head.
The listed building churches in Ashfield make good decorative use of lancet windows.
LANCET ARCH A pointed arch, of which the width, or span, is narrow compared with the height.
LATH The smallest piece of timber (2-5cms) across used in building, employed on rafters to support the roof covering or in a partition as a base for plaster.
LEAD Symbol Pb. A soft, malleable, ductile, bluish-white, dende metallic element, extracted chiefly from galena and in buildings used for guttering, pipes, flashing, and as a roof covering.
LEADS Strips of lead used to hold the panes of glass of a LEADED window.
LECTERN A reading desk in a church for the reading of lessons.
LIGHTS In a window, the openings between mullions.
LINTEL A horizontal structural member spanning an opening (e.g. window or door). Usually made of wood, stone or steel (such as a beam). Carries the weight of, and provides support to, the wall above the opening.
LOZENGE A diamond-shaped pattern characteristic of Romanesque decoration that is often carved around pillars, arches and doorways.
LUCARNE Small gabled opening in a roof or spire.
MARBLE A metamorphic rock formed by alteration of limestone or dolomite, often irregularly colored by impurities, and used especially in architecture and sculpture.
MISERICORD A shelf placed on the underside of a hinged choir stall seat which, when the seat is turned up, provides the occupant with support during long periods of standing.
MODILLIONS Small brackets or consoles along the underside of a Corinthian or Composite cornice. Often also used on an eaves cornice. Wood or stone given these brackets is called MODILLIONED .
MOSAIC A picture or decorative design made by setting small coloured pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface.
MOULDING A continuous, narrow surface (projecting or recesses, plain or ornamented) designed to break up a surface, to accent, or to decorate.
MULLION A vertical member, made of stone or wood, dividing a window or other opening.
MULLIONED Divided by vertical bars or piers usually of stone, as in "mullioned windows".
NARTHEX A porch or vestibule of a church, generally colonnaded or arcaded and preceding the nave.
NAVE The central part of a church, extending from the narthex to the chancel and flanked by aisles.
The word comes from the Latin 'navis', which means a ship, and alludes to the shape of a church nave.
NEWEL A vertical support at the center of a circular staircase. Also, a post that supports a handrail at the bottom or at the landing of a staircase.
NICHE A shallow recess in a wall designed to contain a statue or some other ornament.
NOGGIN Brickwork infilling of a timber-framed wall.
OBELISK A tall, four-sided shaft of stone, usually tapered and monolithic, that rises to a pointed pyramidal top.
OCTAGONAL Having eight sides and eight angles.
OGEE (adjective: ogival) A double curve with the shape of an elongated S, and by extention, a moulding
having the profile of an S-shaped curve.
An arch formed by two S-shaped curves meeting at a point, in other words a pointed arch with double curved sides, upper arcs
convex, lower concave, is called an OGEE ARCH . These were especially popular in the seventeenth century,
and in Victorian revivals of that era.
ORIEL A projecting window in a wall. Originally the term was given to a form of porch, often of wood.
OVERLIGHT A horizontal opening over a door or window.
PANEL A portion of a surface, often a wall lining or in a door, that is usually rectangular and can be recessed or above another surface.
PANTILE A roofing tile with an S-shaped profile, laid so that the down curve of one tile overlaps the up curve of the next one.
PARAPET A low protective wall or railing along the edge of a raised structure such as a roof or balcony.
PARGETING (lit. plastering): Exterior plaster decoration, either moulded in relief or incised.
PEDESTAL An architectural support or base, as for a column or statue.
PEDIMENT A low-pitched gable over porticos, doors, windows, etc.
PERPENDICULAR Of or relating to a style of English Gothic architecture of the 14th and 15th centuries, characterized by emphasis of the vertical element.
PIER Any unattached mass of construction, such as the solid between two windows or a support with no base or cap for an arcade.
PINFOLD An enclosure where stray animals are confined.
PILASTER A flat, rectangular, vertical member projecting from a wall of which it forms a part. Usually has a base and a capital and is often fluted. It is designed to be a flat representation of a classical column in shallow relief.
PILLAR Usually a weight-carrying member, such as a pier or a column; sometimes an isolated, freestanding structure used for commemorative purposes.
PINNACLE A pointed termination of a spire, buttress, or other extremity of a building.
PISCINA A niche near the altar in a church, containing a small basin and drain for rinsing altar vessels
and ceremonial ablutions.
The word comes from the Latin for a fish-pond.
PITCH Roof slope.
PITCHING Rough cobbling.
PLINTH The projecting base of wall. Also, a PLINTH COURSE is a continuous course of stones supporting a wall.
PORCH A covered platform, usually having a separate roof, at an entrance to a building.
PORTAL an entrance, doorway, or gateway.
PULPIT A raised and enclosed platform in a church from which a preacher delivers a sermon.
PURLIN Horizontal longitudinal timber in a roof structure.
QUATREFOIL Ornamental tracery in the form of a flower with four symmetrical petals, or any ornament with four foils or lobes.
QUOINS The dressed stones at the corners of buildings, usually laid so their faces are alternately large and small. Usually in contrasting colour of brick from the rest of the wall. Common feature of Georgian buildings.
REBATE A rectangular recess along the edge of a timber to receive a shutter, door or window
RELIEVING ARCH An arch which encloses an arch or a window or other opening. It helps relieve some of the weight on the arch of the opening.
REGENCY Strictly the period from 1811 to 1820 when George, Prince of Wales was Prince Regent due to the madness of his father George IV. In architecture it is more generally considered the period from the 1790s to about 1840.
RENDER To coat (brick, for example) with plaster or cement.
REREDOS An ornamental screen behind and above an altar. Can be painted, sculpted, or both.
RESPOND A half pillar attached to and projecting from a wall, used to carry one end of an arch.
REVEAL The part of the side of a window or door opening that is between the outer surface of a wall and the window or door frame; the jamb.
REVETMENT Retaining wall.
RIBBED VAULTING Stone or brick vaulting typically used for roofing and comprising a thin, light layer supported by a framework of arched ribs.
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE A style of architecture that flourished in Western Europe between 1050 and 1200. This style derived its name from the fact that it drew much of its influence from Roman architecture. In England, it is also called the Norman style. Some of the characteristic features of this school of architecture are; rounded arches; squat, massive pillars; small windows; simple, carved decoration.
ROUNDEL A curved form, especially a semicircular panel, window, or recess.
RUBBLE WALL A wall of uncoursed rubble.
RUSTICATION Worked ashlar stone, with faces left rough.
SACRISTY A strong room usually attached to the north side of the chancel where vestments and the utendils belonging to the altars were placed. It is synonymous with vestry.
SANDSTONE A sedimentary rock formed by the consolidation and compaction of sand and held together by a natural cement, such as silica.
SASH WINDOW A window formed with sashes i.e. glazed wooden frames which slide up and down in vertical grooves by means of counterbalanced weights. The standard form has two moveable sashes and is termed a "double-hung sash."
SCREEN A partition of stone or wood that separates without completely cutting off one part of a church from another part.
SEDILLA In a church, a recessed seat, usually provided for the clergy or servers assisting at the celebrations
SEGMENTAL ARCH Composed of a single segment, which is less than a semi-circle.
SHAFT The main vertical part of a column between the base and the capital.
SILL The horizontal ledge at the bottom of a window frame.
SLATE A fine-grained metamorphic rock that splits into thin, smooth-surfaced layers. In building, most often used in this area for roofing.
SNECKED Of masonry, with courses broken by smaller stones (snecks).
SOFFIT The exposed undersurface of any overhead component of a building such as an arch, balcony, beam, cornice, lintel or vault.
SPIRE An elongated, pointed structure that rises from a tower, turret, or roof.
SPLAYED An oblique angle or bevel given to the sides of an opening in a wall so that the opening is wider on one side of the wall than on the other.
SPROCKET In a roof, a short timber placed on the back and at the foot of a rafter to form projecting eaves; hence a SPROCKETED roof.
STACK A flue or chimney, or group of chimnies.
STAINED GLASS Glass coloured by mixing pigments inherently in the glass, by fusing colored metallic oxides onto the glass, or by painting and baking transparent colors on the glass surface.
STOUP Holy water basin at the entrance to a church, usually on a pillar or set in a niche.
STORY A set of rooms on the same floor or level; a floor, or the space between two floors. Also, a horizontal division of a building's exterior considered architecturally, which need not correspond exactly with the stories within.
STRAPWORK Decoration like interlaced leather straps. Late 16th and early 17th-century, or Victorian revival.
STRING COURSE A continuous projecting horizontal band set in the surface of a wall and usually molded. Often in a different coloured brick or stone, and used for decoration.
STRUT A roof timber, either upright and connected to the rafter above it, or sloping, connecting another post to the rafter.
STUDS The upright timbers in a timber-framed building.
TESTER A cover or canopy suspended over a tomb or a pulpit. The tester may have a purely ornamental purpose or - where positioned over a pulpit - may be used as a sounding board to magnify and direct the preacher's voice.
TIE-BEAM The main horizontal beam in a roof, connecting the bases of the rafters, usually just above a wall.
TRACERY Carved stonework of interlaced and branching ribs, particularly the lace-like stonework in the upper part of a Gothic window.
TRANSEPT The transverse part of a church with a cruciform or cross-shaped floor plan, i.e. the 'arms' of the cross.
TRANSOM A horizontal crossbar in a window, over a door, or between a door and a window above it. Transom is the horizontal, as mullion is the vertical, bar across an opening.
TRELLISWORK An open pattern of interwoven strips, usually of wood but sometimes metal; also called latticework.
TREFOIL Ornamental tracery in the form of a flower with three symmetrical petals.
TURRET A small, often ornamental tower projecting from a building, usually at a corner.
TYMPANUM The ornamental recessed space or panel enclosed by the cornices of a triangular pediment. Also, a similar space between an arch and the lintel of a portal or window.
VAULT A masonry roof or ceiling constructed on the arch principle.
A barrel or tunnel vault, semicylindrical in cross section, is in effect a deep arch or an uninterrupted series of arches,
one behind the other, over an oblong space.
In a cross-barrel vault, the main barrel (tunnel) vault is intersected at right angles with other barrel (tunnel) vaults at
regular intervals.
A quadrant vault is a half-barrel (tunnel) vault.
A sexpartile vault is a rib vault with six panels.
A fan vault is a development of lierne vaulting characteristic of English Perpendicular Gothic, in which radiating ribs form
a fan-like pattern.
A cross vault (or groin) is formed at the point at which two barrel (tunnel) vaults intersect at right angles.
In a ribbed vault, there is a framework of ribs or arches under the intersections of the vaulting sections.
VESTRY A room in, or attached to, a church where the clergy put on their vestments and where these robes and other sacred objects are stored; synonymous with a sacristy.
WHITEWASH A mixture of lime and water, often with whiting, size, or glue added, that is used to whiten walls, fences, or other structures.
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