• Aberdeen bond: Type of masonry developed in Aberdeenshire, and exported to Canada, it consists of courses of large, roughly-dressed rectangular blocks between which are two or three smaller stones, like large gallets often of a contrasting color.
• Adam style: An architectural style based on the work of Robert Adam and his brothers, predominant in England in the late 18th cent. And strongly influential in the U.S.A., Russia, and elsewhere. It is characterized by clarity of form, use of color, subtle detailing, and unified schemes of interior design. Basically Neoclassical, it also adapted Neo-Gothic, Egyptian, and Etruscan motifs.
• Adamesque: A refined architectural style named for the English architects Robert Adam (1728-92) and his three brothers. It is noted for its delicate Neoclassical ornament, particularly for interiors. A major influence on the American Federal style.
• American garden: Garden planted with species from North America. In the 18th c. seeds were collected and sent to subscribers in England: these included magnolias, kalmias, and rhododendrons, which flourished in shady dells and peaty soils…
• anchorage: Cell or retreat of an anchorite, or person who has withdrawn from this world. They are often found over vestries on the north side of chancels in the North of England, but could be sited elsewhere, usually in churchyards. 2. Any of various means, as embedment length or hooked bars, for developing tension or compression in a reinforcing bar on each side of a critical section in order to prevent bond failure or splitting. 3. A mechanical device for locking a stressed tendon in position and delivering the prestressing force to the concrete, either permanently in a posttensioned member or temporarily during hardening of a pretensioned concrete member. 4. A means for binding a structural member to another or to its foundation, often to resist uplifting and horizontal forces.
• anchoridge: The room over the vestry attached to the north side of the chancel; a common appendage to churches in northern England.
• angel light: A small triangular light between subordinate arches of the tracery of a window, especially in the English perpendicular churches.
• angle shaft: A column within the right-angled recesses of Norman door and window jambs. 2. A decorative member, such as a colonnette or enriched corner bead, attached to an external angle of a building.
• angled : A division line in heraldry.
• Anglo-Saxon: The pre-Romanesque architecture of England before the Norman Conquest (1066), which survived for a short time thereafter, characterized by massive walls and round arches.
• apartment block: A British term for an apartment tower.
• Archigram: Group of English designer formed by Sir Peter Frederic Chester Cook, Herron, Warren Chalk, et.al, influenced by Cedric Price…
• area drain: In British usage, a narrow area to keep the dampness of the soil away from the foundation walls. Properly, it is uncovered and uninterrupted in its length, the cross walls, if used, having large openings at the bottom.
• argent: Heraldic term for the color silver.
• armoured cable: Electrical cable used in architecture (BX cable in USA).
• Artisan Mannerism: English architecture created by mans (rather than architects) in the period c. 1615-75, based on Mannerist pattern-books. Such craftsmen were not trained in the theory and vocabulary of the Classical language of architecture, so their creations often have a curious scale, are strangely proportioned, and frequently display an ignorance of how elements are put together (which some commentators have found refreshing and others distressing).
• Arts and Crafts: A philosophy of design stressing handicrafts and a return to preindustrial design. Popular in England in the late 19th century, it had some influence on the American Prairie and Craftsman styles.
• Arts and Crafts Movement: A philosophy of design stressing handicrafts and a return to preindustrial design. Popular in England in the late 19th century, it had some influence on the American Prairie and Craftsman styles.
• assembly room: A room in which assemblies in the sense of social gatherings, balls, etc., are held. The term was common in England in the 18th century, and is still in use, especially in the United States.
• astler: An ashlar, especially polished and cut to form very tight joints. Old English term for ashlar.
• Axminster: A town in England which gave its name to a long-pile hand-tufted carpet.
• back-to-back housing: Houses built in blocks, with the backs of one block forming the backs of the others. Common in British 19th c. industrial towns, they must not be confused with terrace-housing with walled rear yards and a path between those yards. Most true back-to-back housing has long been demolished.
• balcony stage: A balcony used as a playing area, as in the Elizabethan theatre.
• bale: Type of tomb found in the Cotswolds, England, essentially an altar-tomb supporting a stone half-cylinder resembling a woolen bale.
• banded architrave: In late neoclassic architecture in England, Italy, and France, an architrave interrupted at intervals by smooth projecting blocks, between which are set the molded portions of the architrave.
• barge-board: A board, often elaborately carved, attached to the projecting edge of a gable roof. Also called a verge-board. Common to the Gothic Revival, Elizabethan, and Tudor styles.
• bartizan: Overhanging battlemented corner turret, corbelled out; common in Scotland (and France).
• bastel: Mid 16th to mid-17th c. fortified farmhouse, with accommodation for livestock on the vaulted ground-floor, usually found in the Border counties of Scotland and England.
• bastle: Mid 16th to mid-17th c. fortified farmhouse, with accommodation for livestock on the vaulted ground-floor, usually found in the Border counties of Scotland and England.
• Bath Stone: Bath Oolite; a light cream-colored or nearly white, soft, oolitic limestone from the English Jurassic formations.
• bathing box: In England, a booth for dressing.
• bâtons rompus: Short, straight pieces of convex molding, as those forming Norman or Romanesque chevrons and zigzags.
• bawn: A fortified enclosure, often of mud or stone, surrounding a farmyard or castle, especially in Ireland.
• beak head: An ornament; any of several fantastic, animal-like heads with tapered, downpointed beaks; frequently used in richly decorated Norman doorways. Also see catshead.
• beakhead: An ornament; any of several fantastic, animal-like heads with tapered, downpointed beaks; frequently used in richly decorated Norman doorways. Also see catshead.
• beak-head: An ornament; any of several fantastic, animal-like heads with tapered, downpointed beaks; frequently used in richly decorated Norman doorways. Also see catshead.
• beakhead molding: Also see bird’s neck molding.
• beak-head molding: One common in Norman architecture, using grotesque heads in a series, all heads terminating in a pointed chin or beak.
• bee-hive house: A primitive Irish dwelling of hemispherical form built on a circular foundation, found also, built of stone, in Southern Italy.
• beggin: A dwelling of larger size than a cottage. 2. In the north of England and in Scotland, a house; especially applied to a hut covered with mud or turf.
• begging: A dwelling of larger size than a cottage. 2. In the north of England and in Scotland, a house; especially applied to a hut covered with mud or turf.
• Belfast roof: A bowstring roof.
• bell gable: A substitute support and shelter for a church bell, common in Early English Gothic, usually topping the gable of the west end.
• bell house: A tower-like building for housing bells, especially in Ireland.
• besant: A circular-disk ornament in series upon a molding; common in Norman architecture.
• bezantee: A molding of the Norman period simulating Byzantine coins or bezants.
• billet: A common Norman or Romanesque molding formed by a series of circular (but occasionally square) cylinders, disposed alternately with the notches in single or multiple rows. 2. A timber which is sawn on three sides and left rounded on the fourth. 3. A narrow, generally square, bar of steel, forged or hot-rolled from an ingot or bloom.
• billet molding: A molding used chiefly in Norman architecture.
• black and white work: Exposed timber framing with white infill, as seen on Elizabethan and Tudor houses.
• black-and-white: Exposed timber framing with white infill, as seen on Elizabethan and Tudor houses.
• Blenheim Palace: Like The Palace of Versailles in France, Blenheim – designed by Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726) – was a symbol of the Baroque style in England.
• blind area: An area covered and concealed and intended merely to keep the foundation walls dry and free from the soil. In British usage, differing from an Area Drain (which see) in having solid cross walls, and being commonly covered.
• bog-garden: Bog (from the Irish bogach) is a morass, moss, or wet, spongy ground, consisting of decaying vegetable matter, so a bog-garden is one created where the soil is permanently saturated, but where the water does not rise above the surface to form pools. Soil in such conditions is peaty and acidic, and plants are permitted to grow and naturally reproduce…
• border tower: Along the Scotch and English border, a small fortified tower or keep, common from the early Middle Ages to the 17th century. It was the manor house of those districts, and as such formed a place of refuge for tenants and neighbors.
• Borromini capital: Type of Composite capital with incurving volutes used by the Bastards at Blanford Forum, Dorset, (1730s), and by Thomas Archer. It was derived from capitals favored by Borromini.
• bottle: Old English term for bowtell.
• boulder: A large, loose, or isolated stone, especially one rounded by the action of water or ice. In England, the name is often applied to pebbles or loose flints such as are used in some parts of the British Islands in laying up or facing walls.
• bow: The longitudinal curvature of a rod, bar, or piece of tubing or lumber. 2. An archway. 3. Old English term for flying buttress. 4. A curvature along the length of a wood piece, measured at the point of greatest deviation from a straight line drawn from end to end of the piece.
• bow and string: In British usage, same as bowstring, in composition.
• bowstring beam: In British usage, same as bowstring, in composition.
• box-pew: Common English (and American) 18th century pew type (some big enough for entire families) surrounded by tall timber-paneled partitions with a hinged door.
• bridle: In parts of Great Britain, same as trimmer. Also written bridling.
• bridling: In parts of Great Britain, same as trimmer. Also written bridling.
• British thermal unit: The quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound (0.4 kg) of water 1 degree F. Abbr: Btu.
• brough: In Celtic archaeology, a round structure of prehistoric age, or the ruins of such a structure.
• business block: British in origin. A business building with a pronounced design that was referred to by its proper name.
• butler’s pantry: Originally, and still in England, a room for the use of the butler, who has charge of the service of wine, and the service and stowage of plate. In the U.S. a small serving room adjoining the dining room, and furnished with shelves, glazed cupboards or dressers, a sink, and other conveniences, for the stowage and care of the silver and fine china, glass, and crockery, required for the table.
• butlery: The same as buttery, or butler’s pantry, especially in the English sense.
• byre: A cow stable or cow shed; the term is used chiefly in Scotland and the north of England.
• Caen stone: A stone from Caen, in Normandy, used in some medieval buildings in England.
• caer-: A prefix signifying a fortified wall, castle, or city, occurring in place names in Wales and parts of western and northern England.
• caher: In Ireland, an ancient stone enclosure, often circular in plan, which was used as a field fortification; built of uncemented masonry enclosing an area of from 40 to 200 ft (approx. 12 to 60 m) in diameter and having subterranean chambers.
• cahir: In Ireland, an ancient stone enclosure, often circular in plan, which was used as a field fortification; built of uncemented masonry enclosing an area of from 40 to 200 ft (approx. 12 to 60 m) in diameter and having subterranean chambers.
• calf’s tongue molding: One formed by a series of pendant, pointed, tongue-like members relieved against a plane or, more usually, a curved surface. This decoration is commonly found in archivolts of early Medieval British architecture, the tongues, in such cases radiating from a common center.
• camp sheathing: A construction of sheet piling or sometimes of horizontal planking spiked to guide piles, employed to enclose and confine the compressible soil under and adjoining a heavy structure. The term is also (in England) incorrectly applied to the stringpiece or cap sill of a wharf, properly called a camp shot.
• camp shedding: A construction of sheet piling or sometimes of horizontal planking spiked to guide piles, employed to enclose and confine the compressible soil under and adjoining a heavy structure. The term is also (in England) incorrectly applied to the stringpiece or cap sill of a wharf, properly called a camp shot.
• cannon: Component of the Empire and Federal styles, military decoration, trophies, etc. 2. Element of architecture, often found with cannon-balls, powder-kegs, etc. 3. Cannon-shaped bollard. 4. Projecting water-spout shaped like a cannon-barrel.
• Cape Cod house: A one-and-a-half-story New England house, end-gabled with central chimney floor plan and steep roof, originally built in Massachusetts from 1700 on. Today, a small end-gabled house common in lower-cost housing developments, barely resembling the original.
• cashel: In Irish archaeology, an enclosing wall of rough stone, intended either for defense as forming part of a rude fort, or enclosing a church or several sacred buildings. By some writers the term has been adopted for general use as meaning an enclosure of rough stonework.
• castelet: A small castle. The English form of the French chatelet; rare.
• castellet: A small castle. The English form of the French chatelet; rare.
• catband: In the North of England a chain for closing a street, or a bar for securing a door on the outside.
• cathud: In Scotch usage, a large flat stone set upright to form the back of a fireplace at a distance from the wall behind it, so as to allow of a seat between the wall and fireback.
• ceele: Old English for canopy.
• Celtic ornament: A geometrical pattern distinguishing early English monumental crosses.
• Celtic Revival: Was a 19th c. revival of Celtic art, mostly in Britain and Ireland, which sparked the Hiberno-Romanesque Revival in architecture, and influenced the Arts-and-Crafts movement as well as the development of Art Nouveau…
• chafer house: Old English term for ale house.
• chancel bench: A bench, usually of stone, placed against the side of the chancel, either externally or internally, as in some old English churches. Benches in the chancel apparently took the place of more elaborate stalls.
• charter house: A Carthusian monastery, the term being a mispronouncing of the French chartreuse. Especially, a famous foundational school formerly occupying the site of an old monastery in London, now removed to the country.
• chester: Anglo-Saxon term for a fortified town built on the site of a Roman military post.
• chimney hopper: A cast-iron frame, like an inverted hopper, built into a chimney over the fireplace to form or support the gathering in of the brickwork at the throat. It is an English device, rarely or never used in the United States.
• Christian door: The front door of a colonial New England house in which the exterior paneling forms a cross.
• church stile: Old English for pulpit.
• ciele: Old English for canopy.
• cill: Spelling of sill in English.
• cistvaen: A Celtic sepulchral tomb or chamber formed by placing huge flat stone slabs on end, set together like a box; if set below ground, it is covered by a tumulus.
• Classic Revival: Utilizing the vocabulary of ancient Greek and Roman architecture.
• Classical Revival: The Italian Renaissance or neoclassical movements in England and the United States in the 19th century that looked to the traditions of Greek and Roman antiquity.
• Classical revivals: The Italian Renaissance or neoclassical movements in England and the United States in the 19th century that looked to the traditions of Greek and Roman antiquity.
• clearcole: A priming or sizing material used in Great Britain, white lead ground in water with glue.
• clochan: A type of primitive building peculiar to Ireland, usually having a beehive form; the masonry usually is neither dressed nor cemented; a single stone covers the apex.
• close: The lawn and landscape around an English cathedral or church, usually with other religious buildings defining its limits. Where a French or Italian cathedral would relate to street and plaza, the English one is served by its close.
• clump: Cluster of trees, often features of 18th c. English and American landscape-gardens…
• clunch: A stiff, rigid clay or a chalk, used in early British construction.
• coarse stuff: In England, the first or rough coat of plaster applied to the masonry or laths. It is composed of lime, sand, and cow’s or goat’s hair in proportions varying according to the quality of the lime or local practice. In the U.S., generally called scratch or scratched coat.
• coating: According to English usage, the aggregate of several coats of paint, varnish, or plaster, applied in close succession as rapidly as permitted by good work. In U.S. usage, same as coat; or the operation of applying a coat.
• coffee house: In England, in the 17th and 18th centuries, a kind of tavern, especially devoted to the taking of coffee and chocolate, indulging in conversation, etc. The custom is obsolete except in history and literature. At the present time, a place of refreshment, often one from which alcoholic drinks are excluded.
• coffee room: In England, and until very recent times, the principal eating room and sitting room of a hotel; the hotels not being large, or affecting much elegance before the middle of the 19th century, there was little in the way of reception room or drawing room. Ladies were supposed to have a sitting room of their own, and gentlemen guests met friends in the coffee room, which served also for meals.
• coffer: From Middle English, coffre, “box;” and Latin cophuinus, “basket.” A recessed box-like panel in a ceiling or vault; usually square but some-times octagonal or lozenge-shaped (see Fig. 63).
• coit: In England, an early type of building combining a cattle stable, barn, and dwelling.
• college garden: Unlike many European universities, English college foundations at Oxford and Cambridge were established in what were small hamlets distant from the capital, and so had gardens, and even extensive meadows attached to them…
• collegiate architecture: Architecture having the characteristics of a college; particularly used of the style employed in mediaeval and Elizabethan colleges of the great British universities, with their quiet courtyards or quadrangles, mullioned windows, battlemented parapets, picturesque chimneys, bays, and oriels.
• Collegiate Gothic style: Collegiate Gothic, which followed Victorian Gothic, was much more precise. It emulated Oxford and Cambridge more directly.
• colmbage: Norman term for half-timber construction.
• combination room: In English universities, a room serving the same purpose as common room; in a general way the characteristic of Cambridge University, as common room is of Oxford.
• Commissioners’ churches: Following the Napoléonic Wars, it was feared that England might suffer upheavals similar to those of France, and, faced with irreligion, Nonconformity, and an increasing population, the authorities determined to build Anglican churches, numbers of which were erected under the aegis of the Commissioners for Building New Churches…
• community architecture: English housing-movement involving participation in design of users of buildings…
• conical roof: Used in Victorian and Queen-Anne type buildings, has an exterior surface shaped like a cone.
• connected farm: The connected farm – a rambling complex of attached houses, barns, and animal sheds – is indigenous to northern New England. The supplementary buildings were usually added one by one over time, often as frugal Yankee farmers moved older, obsolete outbuildings from elsewhere on their property closer to the main house for reuse. While the frigid winters of the region might explain this folk type, connected farms were not common until the mid-1800s and never appeared in other regions of the country that get just as cold as the Northeast. Rather, the connected farm probably developed in response to economic needs. As the 19th century progressed, the poor New England soil couldn’t support the more progressive, large-scale family farms with cottage industries, such as needlecrafts and canning, and adopted a convenient arrangement of buildings to serve agriculture and home industry under the same roof.
• corps de logis: The main part of a large dwelling, and, by extension, of any building, as distinguished from its wings or other subordinate parts. 2. A detached, or nearly detached residential pavilion. In this sense, not commonly used in English.
• cottage orne: A rustic, romantic Victorian house using tree trunks and branches as columns and brackets.
• cottage ornee: A rustic, romantic Victorian house using tree trunks and branches as columns and brackets.
• country house: A residence so far away from a city or large village that it stands free among its outbuildings and dependencies, and is beyond the sidewalks and out of easy reach of the shops, etc., and has to be in a certain sense self-contained. This requirement is diminishing, however, with the increase of facility in communication, the general use of the telephone, and, at least in England, of the house to house delivery of mail matter.
• county hall: In Great Britain, a public edifice for various county functions, comprising a large hall for public meetings and festivities, accommodation for the county courts and petty sessions, a grand jury room, county clerk’s office, etc.
• covered alley: A primitive stone structure of a kind abounding in Great Britain and Brittany, as well as in other parts of the world. It is composed of two rows of flat stones set vertically and sustaining a roof of rough lintels, the whole 20 or 30 yards long. In most cases it is the entrance passage to a cistvaen.
• crinkle-crankle: A serpentine wall, especially in 18th century Suffolk.
• Crittall windows: Metal casement-windows developed in the period immediately after the 1914-18 war by a British company of that name. They were features of many Art-Deco and Modernistic buildings, as well as of countless dwellings.
• crush room: A room, spacious lobby, or salon in a theatre, opera house, or other place of entertainment, provided for promenading and conversation between the acts or during intermissions in the entertainment. The term is more general in Great Britain than in the U.S., where the French word foyer is more commonly employed.
• crutch: One of a pair of naturally curved timbers that rise from the outer walls to support the ridge beam, each crutch being called a blade; joined at the top and connected by one or two tie beams, the resulting arched frame forming the unit in the framework of old English houses or farm buildings; pairs of crutches were placed at approximately equal intervals.
• Crystal Palace: An exhibition building constructed in large part of iron and glass in Hyde Park, London for the great exhibition of 1851. 2. Any exhibition building similarly constructed.
• cubiform capital: In medieval, especially Norman, architecture, a cubic capital with its lower angles rounded off.
• curb: The change in level between sidewalk and street. 2. A low guard wall around an opening, as the curb of a well. The English spelling is kerb. 3. The arris between an upper and lower slope on a gambrel or mansard roof.
• Danish knot: Complicated intertwining tendrils of foliate Anglo-Saxon and Celtic ornament. Also called runic knot.
• deal: English term for a commonly used pine. 2. A general term used in many parts of the world for board and plank sizes of softwoods.
• Decalogue: Parts of a reredos in a church on which the Ten Commandments are set out, commonly found in England from 17th c. It may also be in the form of separate framed panels on a church-wall.
• Decorated: A term applied to the medieval architecture in England prevailing during the reigns of the first three Edwards. It followed the Early English period.
• Decorated architecture: The second of the three phases of English Gothic architecture, from ca. 1280 to after 1350, preceded by Early English and followed by the Perpendicular; characterized by rich decoration and tracery, multiple ribs and liernes, and often ogee arches. Its early development is called Geometric; its later, Curvilinear.
• Decorated style: The second of the three phases of English Gothic architecture, from ca. 1280 to after 1350, preceded by Early English and followed by the Perpendicular; characterized by rich decoration and tracery, multiple ribs and liernes, and often ogee arches. Its early development is called Geometric; its later, Curvilinear.
• demense: Possession of real estate by free tenure. 2. An estate, including house and land: the term is common in Ireland.
• dilapidation: Technically, and in English legal usage, the act of injuring or allowing injury to be done to property which is held for a time…
• dip pipe: In Great Britain, the short vertical pipe connecting a water closet with a D trap.
• divinity hall: In Scotland, the building or department of a university in which divinity is taught.
• dogtooth: Any of a series of closely spaced, pyramidal ornaments, formed by sculptured leaves radiating from a raised center, used especially in early English Gothic architecture.
• Domestic Revival: Offshoot of the cult of the Picturesque and the Gothic Revival, it was essentially a style of domestic architecture that incorporated forms, details, and materials found in English vernacular buildings, including steeply-pitched tiled roofs, dormers, timber-framing and jettied construction, small-paned mullioned and transomed windows (often with leaded lights), tile-hung walls, tall chimneys (often of the Tudor type in carved and molded brick), and carefully contrived asymmetrical compositions.
• dorman: In Great Britain, a large horizontal timber; a large beam; a sleeper; called also dormant and dormant tree; also summer tree.
• double measure: In England, when molded on both sides it is a double measure; said of a door.
• double Roman tile: A standard British roofing tile.
• Doultonware: High-fired vitrified non-porous salt-glazed ceramic made of a hard grey-brown material (stoneware) on which designs were drawn, a part or the whole then being richly colored…
• dovecot: A round or sometimes many-sided building for the nesting of doves and pigeons. Some famous examples in England have nests of over a thousand birds.
• dower house: English term for the house occupied by a widow after the passing of her manor house to the eldest son.
• dress circle: Originally, in British theatres, the first balcony containing the boxes, and set apart for the wealthier class of the audience, who were supposed to appear in evening dress. It usually extended around three sides of the auditorium, the pit being either enclosed by it, or extending under it. In modern times, the term is used more or less indiscriminately to mean a similar part of a theater either on the main floor, or on a balcony above the orchestra, and next in importance to the latter, and most often without boxes.
• drive: Route originally laid out for horse-drawn carriages within a park, an important component of English 18th c. landscape-design, intended to provide changing views of the scenery, especially in work by Repton: it entered American usage in the second quarter of the 19th c., although Downing distinguished it from an approach which led from a public road to the house, and a drive was a way along which visitors could be conveyed around an estate.
• druid’s cave: Rustic structure in a landscape-garden, reflecting a contemporary interest in British Antiquity, archaeological theories, ruins, and Romanticism…
• druid’s cell: Rustic structure in a landscape-garden, reflecting a contemporary interest in British Antiquity, archaeological theories, ruins, and Romanticism…
• Dutch bond: English cross bond or 2. Flemish bond.
• Dutch diaper bond: Same as English cross bond.
• Dutch-cross bond: English cross bond or 2. Flemish bond.
• dwarf wainscoting: In Great Britain, wainscoting covering only the lower part of the walls of a room, usually 2 feet 6 inches to 5 or 6 feet high. In the U.S., a dado of woodwork; rare, as wainscoting is there seldom used for the whole wall.
• E plan: That especial plan, as for a large country house, whose general outline resembles the capital letter E. It is attained by arranging two larger pavilions at the two ends of the main building and a smaller one halfway between them; although in English country houses the end pavilions have rather the aspect of breaks in the main building which seems to be returned at right angles at either end, the lines of cornice, roof, etc., being continuous or nearly so. It has been though that this plan was sometimes used in compliment to Queen Elizabeth.
• Early English: A period of English ecclesiastical architecture extending from 1200 to 1300 A.D.
• Early English architecture: A period of English ecclesiastical architecture extending from 1200 to 1300 A.D.
• Early English Colonial style: Establishing their first settlements in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620, some half a million colonists had emigrated to America from England, Scotland, and Ireland by the end of the 17th century. With them came a thoroughly British pattern of social and cultural values that soon traversed the Atlantic seaboard. Building characteristics varied from colony to colony and town to town. However, a broad distinction can be drawn between the New England village, which comprised individual houses grouped around a town green, and the isolated southern plantation, a self-sufficient enterprise supported by slave labor and complete with a forge, carpentry shop, and perhaps a brickyard. New England settlers were primarily middle-class yeoman families. Most came from a single area of England (East Anglia), and they continued a well-entrenched tradition of heavy timber-framed buildings. Settlers of the Virginia tidewater region and farther south came from more diverse areas and included a significant number of bricklayers and masons. Lime, used for mortar, was also readily available in the South, so masonry construction was more typical. Until about 1700, all early English Colonial houses shared a distinct postmedieval character, most noticeable in steep pitched roofs (a holdover originally designed to support thatch), immense stacked chimneys, and small casement windows. The plan was typically a one-room, all-purpose “fireroom,” or “hall,” used for cooking, eating, and sleeping, or a two-room layout with a central chimney dividing the hall and parlor or kitchen. Additional sleeping chambers were located above.
• Eastlake design: A decorative design in the style of British designer Charles Eastlake, marked by rich ornamentation.
• edge shafts: Shafts which sustain arches, united by their sides and back to the nearest wall or arch, so they appear to support their edge only; abundantly used in Norman architecture.
• Edwardian architecture: Architecture of the British Empire in the reign of King Edward VII, often characterized by an opulent Baroque revival or Wrenaissance…
• Edwardine: Of the time of King Edward VI.
• Elgin marbles: The collection of sculptured fragments brought to the British Museum in London by Lord Elgin; the collection consisted mainly of pieces of the metopes, frieze, tympana, and other parts of the Parthenon, the Nike Apteros, and the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates.
• Elizabethan: In the United States, the term often refers to late-19th- and early-20th-century English Revival architecture that used “black-and-white” half-timbering. Based vaguely on late medieval, rambling English cottages, it is often used interchangeably with Tudor.
• Elizabethan Revival: During the 1830s Elizabethan architecture provided precedents for those in search of an English national style…
• English bungalow: During the 1920s and 1930s many builders turned to an alternative bungalow design, the English bungalow. The planes suggested by low gables were filled in, so solid walls were tied to the gables. The open gable gave Way to mass in receding planes. The result was a compact brick or stucco house with successive gables and different motifs on each gable wall. The English bungalow included from one to three gables, a terrace usually on the street side, and an end-wall fireplace chimney. Gables were steep but not broad; one raking cornice of the gable often descended far below the wall line, even to ground level. Some gables served as screens behind which the entrance door was set, parallel to the street and hidden from view. Other features included varied window placement and size, combinations of cladding, a combination of roof forms (a hip on one end and clipped gable on the other), decorative louvers in the gables, arches, ornamental brickwork, and shingled roofs. All this produced a cozy five- or six-room house whose facade could look different from that of its neighbors…
• English cottage: The English cottage underwent a revival in the first few decades of this century. This picturesque cottage featured asymmetrical massing of steeply pitched roofs, stucco walls with clean edges, unusual window patterns, tall chimneys, and English detailing—all calculated to produce a charming, moderately rustic design. On plan, rooms were often clustered around a hall, and room sizes and shapes differed so as to provide new spatial experiences and opportunities for built-in furniture, a window treatment, and perhaps access to a terrace or a porch. These different interior spaces often projected from the main body of the house. Specific detailing included brick trim around openings, the use of Tudor framing in gables, some changes in materials, clipped gables, and high-contrast coloration…
• English cross bond: A bond whose only difference from the English bond is that each alternate course of stretchers is moved over half the length of a brick.
• English flooring: A type of flooring pattern.
• English garden: Same as jardin anglais; hardly used in English except as a translation of the French, or by way of deliberate contrast with the formal garden…
• English harewood: Called sycamore in England; a wood that is dyed to many colors; used for furniture and veneer.
• English Regency style: A style similar to the Directoire and Empire styles. Its decoration involved many styles such as Chinese and Egyptian motifs.
• English Renaissance: A period of architecture which Sir Banister Fletcher divides into two parts: Elizabethan (1558-1603) and Jacobean (1603-1625).
• English style: Term coined to describe a type of English and North-American late-20th c. interior design in which antique and modern, the odd and the familiar, the permanent and the ephemeral, and above all, fine quality, were synthesized.
• Episcopal chapel: In the British Isles, a chapel connected with the established church… 2. A chapel of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S…
• E-plan: English country-house plan shaped like an E…
• eye-catcher: Purely decorative building, without function, such as the Gothic ruins built to romanticize parks and gardens in 18th century England.
• false bearing: In English usage, a bearing or point of support which is not vertically over the supporting structure below, as that which is afforded by a projecting corbel or cantilever.
• feather board: Any board having a feather edge; especially in British usage, the same as clapboard.
• fernery: Collection of ferns, or the place where ferns are grown, especially rock- and woodland gardens, popular in the Victorian period. 2. Glass-house or conservatory to house ferns brought from warm climes…
• fern-house: Collection of ferns, or the place where ferns are grown, especially rock- and woodland gardens, popular in the Victorian period. 2. Glass-house or conservatory to house ferns brought from warm climes…
• feyra: A druidical spherical rock placed at the center of a Celtic monument consisting of a number of menhirs arranged in a circle.
• filicetum: Collection of ferns, or the place where ferns are grown, especially rock- and woodland gardens, popular in the Victorian period. 2. Glass-house or conservatory to house ferns brought from warm climes…
• firestone: Any stone thought to be peculiarly fit to resist great heat. Such a material occasionally used in England is described as having a large quantity of silica, and is apparently a sandstone capable of resisting even the direct effects of flame under ordinary circumstances, as in connection with an open fireplace. In the U.S., some varieties of Western sandstone, generally of light brown color, are found unusually resistant.
• firm: One of two rafters which form a truss; as a pair of firms. The term is local in England, or nearly obsolete.
• first piece: Locally, in Lancashire, England, the ridgepiece of a roof.
• First Pointed: Earliest (late 12th to late 13th c.) of the Gothic styles, known in England as Early English…
• first stone: In Great Britain, same as foundation stone.
• flint: A dense, fine-grained stone; a form of silica; naturally occurs in the form of nodules; usually gray, brown, black, or otherwise dark in color, but nodules and other chunks tend to weather white or light shades from the surface inward. Broken “flints,” as the nodules are called, are used in cobble size, either whole or split (knapped) in mortared walls, especially in England.
• flint wall: One built in the English custom, its outer shell of flints with their rough faces.
• Flowing style: An old term for the later phases of the English Decorated and the French Flamboyant styles of Gothic architecture. The term was derived from the flowing quality of the tracery.
• folly: A whimsical or extravagant structure built to serve as a conversation piece, lend interest to a view, or commemorate a person or event.
• four-centered arch: A shallow pointed arch struck from four centers, as in a Tudor arch.
• four-centered pointed arch: See Tudor arch.
• Garrison: A neo-colonial revival of the Early New England Colonial clapboard house featuring the jetted or overhanging second floor and usually diamond paned windows.
• Garrison Colonial: A neo-colonial revival of the Early New England Colonial clapboard house featuring the jetted or overhanging second floor and usually diamond paned windows.
• gentese: In Early English architecture, cusps in the arch of a doorway.
• geometrical decorated: In English architecture, belonging to the Decorated style characteristic of the 13th century, and having much geometrical tracery. The term is one of many attempts at a minute and classified nomenclature which it is probably impossible to secure.
• Georgian architecture: The prevailing style of the 18th century in Great Britain and the North American colonies, so named after George I, George II, and George III (1714-1820), but commonly not including George IV. Derived from classical, Renaissance, and Baroque forms.
• Georgian Revival style: Georgian Revival is sometimes referred to as Colonial Revival (1870-1920). The English Georgian style was the most prevalent type of Colonial buildings, but certainly not the only one. Two obvious exceptions are styles that were used by the Dutch and French.
• ginnell: In local British usage, a passage between two buildings or the like.
• Glasgow school: Name given to late-19th to early 20th c. Glasgow architects/designers, especially C.R. Mackintosh, Margaret and Frances, Macdonald, and Herbert McNair…
• glebe: The land, and by extension the residence, of the holder of an ecclesiastical benefice from the Church of England.
• Go: Pejorative term used by some Victorian commentators to describe work of Rogue Goths that was restless, animated, acrobatic, and embarrassing…
• going: In British usage: 1. Of a step, the horizontal distance between two successive risers. 2. Of a stair or flight, the horizontal distance between the first and last risers.
• Gothick: An English-style neo-Gothic building.
• Grand Manner: Style of 17th c. academic history-painting, so applied to large-scale Baroque Continental gardens (e.g. those of Le Nôtre). In Britain formal gardens also tended to incorporate views of surrounding countryside.
• groined: The angle formed by meeting or intersection of two vaults. In the Norman era (1066 – 1300) these were left plain, but during the Gothic era these were almost invariably covered with ribs. For the Baroque architects, these were very ornate.
• half-timber building: A building framed in timber, the spaces between being filled with bricks or clay, usually found in the more wooded parts of England.
• hall house: In local British usage, the principal room of a farmhouse. 2. By extension from the preceding definition, the principal building of a farm.
• halland: In the dialect of Scotland and the north of England, a partition, as in a cottage, often a solid one without openings of any sort as when used to separate the part of the cottage occupied by the family from that used as a cowhouse… Also see halland.
• hallyngs: The hangings of the early English hall.
• hamlet: In Great Britain, a village of little consequence, especially a village which does not in itself constitute a parish, and has therefore no parish church. 2. In some of the U.S., the official designation of certain villages…
• Hiberno-Romanesque: Style of Irish ecclesiastical buildings (10th to 12th c.) characterized by simple rectangular structures, detached circular towers with conical roofs, semicircular-headed openings, and the usual array of Romanesque ornament, with such structures as Celtic crosses sumptuously carved…
• high cross: Free-standing detached sculpted stone cross, usually Celtic or Anglo-Saxon…
• High Victorian: A period of design in Great Britain and the United States that emerged in the mid-19th century and lasted for several decades, emphasizing picturesqueness, variety, ruggedness and vigorous modification of historic details.
• H-plan: Plan shaped like an H, as in Elizabethan houses such as Montacute House, Som. It was a variation on the E-plan in that it was like two Es placed back to back, with the wings extending symmetrically in both directions.
• hunting box: A building intended as a temporary residence for a person interested in hunting, as in Great Britain…
• hustings: In Great Britain, the temporary structure put up for the purpose of conducting an election and providing a platform for spectators, places for the voters, and offices…
• hutch: Early English term for a chest or locker in which sacred vessels were kept.
• hypermensul: A “sun-stone” placed at the center of a Celtic monument consisting of a number of menhirs arranged in a circle.
• imbricated: Bearing overlapping shingles or plates arranged as in the scales of a fish. Victorian roofs, both mansard and single-gabled, frequently were imbricated in several colors.
• interlacing ornament: A method of ornamentation, especially characteristic of the time of Elizabeth in England, composed of a capricious interlacing, folding, and interpenetration of bands or fillets, sometimes represented as cut with foliations.
• interrupted arched molding: A common Norman molding consisting of a series of interrupted arches.
• Irish architecture: See architectural monuments of Ireland.
• Jacobean: A style named for James I (1603-25), one of the English Revival styles popular with the gentry at the turn of the 20th century. Characterized by stone construction, steep roofs, and shaped parapet gables. The occasional result of combining its features with an Elizabethan motif has been slyly called Jacobethan.
• Jacobean architecture: English architectural and decorative style of the early 17th century, adapting the Elizabethan style to continental Renaissance influences; named after James I (1603-1625), but continuing beyond his death.
• Jacobean Mannerist garden: Until 1603, when James VI of Scotland ascended to the Throne as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, England had been to some extent isolated from artistic developments on the Continent during the reign of Elizabeth I. With the ascension of the Stuarts, however, contacts were renewed with Italian art… The inspiration for the Mannerist fountain-and-grotto mania which gripped Jacobean England was the celebrated garden of Pratolino, outside Florence, filtered through French gardens such as those at Fontainebleau and St Germain-en-Laye…
• Jacobean Revival: Sometimes, the architecture during King James’s reign (Jacobean), also, Renaissance, is included in Tudor style.
• Jacobethan: Revivalist architecture of 19th c. and early 20th c., in which Elizabethan and Jacobean elements were freely mixed. William Burn specialized in the style for his country-houses.
• Jacobethean style: Derived from a style of housing popular in 17th century England, using masonry and symmetry with interior courtyards, transom windows, and gabled dormers.
• jawbox: In parts of Scotland, a wooden trough set outside of a window, as in a town house. Slops thrown into this were conveyed to the ground by an outside pipe, or a gutter and leader.
• jawhole: In Scotland, a sink of any kind. A place for pouring out or carrying away slops; from the Scotch verb, jaw, to pour out. In architecture, used sometimes instead of jawstone and jawbox.
• jawstone: In Scotland, a convenience similar to a jawbox, but cut out of stone.
• jedding axe: In parts of Great Britain, a mason’s axe, or hammer.
• jerry building: Poor and slight building in houses and the like; familiarly associated with small houses run up in long rows in the neighborhood of London. Rare in the U.S.
• jointure house: In England, a dwelling which by legal disposition attending a marriage is made the property, for a certain time, either of the married couple, or more especially of the woman, in case she survives her husband. Not to be confounded with dower house.
• keeper’s house: On a British estate, the dwelling provided for a gamekeeper.
• Kentish rag: A rough limestone found in Kent and used as external masonry.
• kerb: British equivalent of curb.
• kirk: A church, especially in Scotland.
• kirke: A church, especially in Scotland.
• Knole House: In Kent, England. A magnificent seat, the main house dating from the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII…
• laced windows: In early 18th century English architecture, a brick decoration in strips around a window to emphasize its shape.
• lacertine: Celtic interlacing scrolling ornament, with dragon-like head biting its tail.
• lancet architecture: An old term for the Early English phase of Gothic architecture.
• latten: An early English alloy, resembling brass.
• lay: In British usage, in plastering, the first or rough coat.
• lazar house: A hospital for those afflicted with contagious diseases of very dangerous character; perhaps originally the same as the French ladrerie, which is generally considered a hospital for lepers only…
• leads: In British usage, lead roofing; a roof or roofs covered with lead. Used collectively, especially of flat roofs and decks.
• levercel: Early English term for door hood, or sometimes an open shed.
• lift: An elevator; a sidewalk lift is an elevator rising through iron doors in a sidewalk. 2. A metal aid in lifting a sash or door. 3. The height of a quantity of concrete placed in a form at one time. 4. British term for elevator.
• linenfold panelling: Wooden paneling in which the individual panels are carved with a motif like the vertical folds of linen, from the Tudor period.
• linhay: An open shed for cattle; local English.
• litany desk: A kneeling bench with a low desk or bookrest placed at the head of the nave before the chancel door or gate, and used in the Church of England and in the Protestant Episcopal Church in America by the clergyman or clerk when reciting the litany.
• living hall: The large first-floor circulation space in a Queen Anne house, with fireplace and stairs accessed from the main entry and opening to living areas through large doorways.
• London stock: The basic brick made in any given region, i.e. London stock brick.
• London stock brick: Originally, handmade bricks produced in the vicinity of London, made on a “stock,” i.e., a block of wood that locates the mold on the mold table; now machine-made brick of a coarse-textured yellow.
• long gallery: A gallery in the upper stories of an Elizabethan or Jacobean manor house; often used as a promenade or family room.
• longleat house: A mansion built in 1578 upon an estate which is on the border between Wiltshire and Somersetshire, England…
• lucerne: In Great Britain, a window in the roof, obviously a corruption of Lucarne. The term is sometimes applied to a window following the slope of a roof and not arranged vertically under a roof of its own, as in the dormer window.
• macadam: A common method of paving with crushed stone, named for John L. Macadam (1756-1836), a Scottish engineer.
• maisonette: A British term for duplex apartments within an apartment house, like a “little house.”
• manor-house: House in a district in medieval England over which the Court of the Lord of the Manor had authority, or on the land belonging to that nobleman: it was usually unfortified, of medium size, and architecturally unpretentious.
• mansion house: The residence of the Lord Mayor of London, finished about 1750. It has an interesting hexastyle Corinthian portico.
• margin-light: Tall, narrow flanking-window or wing-light on either side of a wider door or window, often found in late-18th c. and early 19th c. British houses of the grander sort. 2. Narrow lights defined by glazing-bars around the edges of a sash-window, often with colored glass, and common in 19th c. Greek-Revival architecture or that influenced by a taste for a wider, squatter proportion of rectangular window fashionable c. 1810.
• markee: A tent or temporary awning, especially in Great Britain; apparently a mispronunciation of marquise.
• MARS: Modern Architectural Research Group. A group of architects (including Arup, Coates, and Lubetkin) founded (1933) to promote International Modernism and Rationalism in the United Kingdom (it was the UK branch of CIAM). Taking its cue from Le Corbusier’s Plan Voisin and other theoretical ideas, it proposed (1942) widespread destruction and rebuilding of London. It was disbanded (1957).
• medallion molding: A molding consisting of a series of medallions, found in the later and richer examples of Norman architecture.
• mediaeval: The term applied to architecture in England during the Middle Ages.
• medieval door: A door with rounded, pointed-head, or Tudor-headed tops used with medieval styles.
• megalith: A stone of great size, as in prehistoric remains such as Stonehenge in England.
• mixed garden wall bond: In brickwork, a bond similar to English garden wall bond, except that the course of headers is replaced by one consisting of alternate headers and stretchers.
• monk bond: A standard bricklaying arrangement modifying Flemish bond.
• mount: Artificial mound of earth, stones, etc., in a garden (usually 16th or 17th c.) to provide a vantage point from which views might be enjoyed. Advocated (1625) by Francis Bacon (who had mounts constructed at Gray’s Inn, London…).
• multiple roof: A roof consisting of a combination of roof forms. This roof type is a commonly seen feature on Queen Anne style houses.
• mutual gable: In Scottish law, same as party wall. The use of the term should be compared with that of gable wall, the American use applying generally to any side wall, as in a city house, while the Scottish use is limited to the wall which separates two houses.
• National Historicism: Architecture influenced by the past (see Historicism), especially with local or national characteristics, e.g. the English Domestic Revival and Queen-Anne styles, Irish Hiberno-Romanesque, 19th c. revival of Flemish domestic architecture in Belgium, and aspects of the Rundbogenstil in Germany (see National Romanticism).
• nebule: A form of ornament characteristic of Norman architecture – in band or corbel table – the lower edge of which is undulating.
• nebulé: Romanesque ornament, slightly resembling an undulating rounded chevron molding, the lower part of which forms a continuous waving overhang, usually found on corbel-tables.
• Neo-Georgian: Late-19th and early-20th c. English and American architecture inspired by 18th c. Georgian domestic architecture, usually featuring brick facades with rubbed-brick dressings, sash-windows, and door-cases with fanlights. Sometimes the inspiration was more Colonial than English, on both sides of the Atlantic, and vernacular elements were mixed with the underlying Classicism…
• Neo-Gothic: A revival of Gothic forms, such as occurred both in England and the United States in the 19th centuries.
• Neo-Norman: Romanesque Revival, especially from c. 1820, e.g. work by Hopper.
• Neo-Tudor: The 19th century revival of late-English medieval architecture of the period 1485-1547, particularly associated with the early-19th c. Gothic Revival, Domestic Revival, Old English, and Tudorbethan styles, and the Arts-and-crafts Movement. Tudor vernacular architecture was also revived (1920s and 1930s).
• New Towns: Thirty-two totally new urban environments created in Britain since 1946 with a population of over 2 million. English examples are Harlow and Milton Keynes. Most are interesting as experiments in sociology and urban planning than as essays in architectural excellence.
• Nissen hut: A semicylindrical structure of corrugated steel, adapted to military use, taking its name from the designer, a British engineer.
• noel: An old English term for newel.
• Norman: A style of buildings erected by the Normans (1066 – 1154) based on the Italian Romanesque. It was used principally in castles, churches, and abbeys of massive proportions. Sparsely decorated masonry and the use of the round arch are characteristic.
• Norman architecture: The Romanesque architecture of England from the Norman conquest (1066) until the rise of the Gothic around 1180.
• Norman Conquest: The conquest of England by the Normans under William the Conqueror, in 1066.
• Northern Renaissance Revival: Late-19th c. revival (especially in England) of the Renaissance and Mannerist styles of Flanders, The Netherlands, and Northern Germany, notably by Sir Ernest George and other contemporaries, also termed Pont-Street Dutch or Flemish Revival. IT frequently incorporated details made of terracotta.
• notch board: In Great Britain, the string of a flight of stairs, especially when horsed out, so as to show a series of right-angled notches on the upper edge.
• nutmeg ornament: A common ornamental feature of Early English work in the north of England, resembling a half a nutmeg.
• Old English: Architectural style involving the revival of vernacular elements from the Sussex-Kent Weald, one of the threads of the 19th c. Domestic Revival, Queen-Anne style, and the Arts-and-Crafts movement. It was characterized by tile-hung walls, diaper-patterns on brick-work, leaded windows of the casement type, timber-framing (sometimes not real, but merely decorative) of elements (often gables and jetties), barge-boards cut with fretwork, rubbed brick, dressings, steep tiled roofs, and tall ornamental chimney-stacks of molded brick or terracotta. Planning was informal and additive while composition was Picturesque. In the USA the Colonial Revival had similar trends, and led to the Shingle style.
• open heart molding: A common Norman molding consisting of a series of overlapping shapes resembling the outlines of a heart.
• oriele: In medieval England, a small room at the end of the great hall in a manor house, perhaps formerly an oratory.
• Ornamented English: That phase of Medieval architecture in England generally called the Decorated period; it occurred chiefly in the reigns of the three first Edwards.
• orne: A rustic, romantic Victorian house using tree trunks and branches as columns and brackets.
• Palladian style: An interpretation of the classical style developed by Andrea Palladio (1508-80), the Italian architect. Palladianism was revived in England in the early 18th century by Lord Burlington and Colen Campbell and influenced American architecture in the late 18th century.
• pan: A wall plate. 2. A part, larger or smaller, of an exterior wall; in half-timbered work in England, especially one of those spaces which are left between the upright and horizontal timbers, and which are filled either with plastering or laths, or by rough brickwork, or the like… 3. A reusable metal or fiberglass mold used in forming a ribbed slab, available in standard 20- and 30-inch (508- and 762-mm) widths and a variety of depths. 4. A major vertical division of a wall, especially a nogged panel of half-timber construction.
• pan piece: A part, larger or smaller, of an exterior wall; in half-timbered work in England, especially one of those spaces which are left between the upright and horizontal timbers, and which are filled either with plastering or laths, or by rough brickwork, or the like…
• pargeting: Elaborate plasterwork; especially an ornamental facing for plaster walls, sometimes decorated with figures in low relief or indented; often used on the exterior of houses in the Tudor period. 2. An interior lining of a flue to provide a smooth surface and to aid in fire protection.
• pargework: Elaborate plasterwork; especially an ornamental facing for plaster walls, sometimes decorated with figures in low relief or indented; often used on the exterior of houses in the Tudor period. 2. An interior lining of a flue to provide a smooth surface and to aid in fire protection.
• park: A considerable extent of more or less carefully preserved woodland and pasture attached to a residence. A legally enclosed and privileged domain which is especially defined by old English law. 2. A public reservation for recreation and utility, varying in extent from great reservations, such as Yellowstone Park, United States, to a small square, or the like, in a city…
• peel: In northern England and Scotland in the Middle Ages, a small, emergency defense structure, generally a low, fortified tower, usable as a dwelling place.
• penn pit: In Great Britain, a primitive dwelling underground or nearly so; the pit excavated for the purpose being roofed at the level of the surface or, later, somewhat above.
• Perpendicular: Of or relating to a style of English Gothic architecture of the 14th and 15th centuries, characterized by emphasis of the vertical element.
• Perpendicular Gothic: An English development of Gothic architecture after 1350, characterized by emphasis of vertical lines.
• perpendicular style: The last style in English Gothic architecture, characterized by tracery in which the pattern is formed by multiplying the mullions in the upper part of the window and by a general tendency to stress vertical moldings.
• Picts’ house: A house, circular in plan, of conical shape, with an opening at the top; large stones, without cement, were employed in its construction. The internal area was often considerably less in diameter than the thickness of the wall, within which were sometimes staircases and small cell-like rooms. Constructed by the Picts who formerly inhabited the highlands of Scotland and some of the islands of Scotland.
• Pict’s house: In Scotland, a rude dwelling built often upon the side of a hill, so that parts of the house are excavated, while others are enclosed by walls of unhewn stones. The rude stonework was carried up in a conical or domical shape until the roof was completed; then the earth was heaped above it, or a layer of turf or peat was used to cover everything. These buildings were sometimes large, containing many chambers.
• Picturesque: A philosophy of landscape architecture and design that suggests buildings and landscapes should relate with one another. Originated in England in the last quarter of the 18th century.
• pigeon house: Colombier in French. In English, a large building of the sort, a separate tower of considerable size and importance, such as were attached to large farms, manor houses, and strong castles in the Middle Ages…
• pigeon-house: See doocot; dovecot(e).
• pillar: An upright structure that supports an arch or a superstructure or provides a decorative element. Pillars are massive in the Norman period, and have a wide variety of decorated, square, rounded and ornate patterns. Pillars can have bases and capitals.
• pillars: An upright structure that supports an arch or a superstructure or provides a decorative element. Pillars are massive in the Norman period, and have a wide variety of decorated, square, rounded and ornate patterns. Pillars can have bases and capitals.
• pit: Of a theater, formerly the part on the ground floor between the lower range of boxes and the stage; more recently, a much-reduced area for the stalls and reserved pit seats of the English theater.
• plaza: The English (and now American) version of the Italian piazza: an outdoor space contained by different buildings.
• pleasure-garden: Any garden or pleasure-ground for relaxation, etc., distinct from a vegetable-garden, kitchen-garden, or orchard. 2. Garden run as a commercial enterprise from the Restoration (1660) until the mid-19th c. in London…
• plexiform: Having the appearance of network, weaving, or plaiting, as in Celtic and Romanesque ornamentation.
• point block: A British term for an apartment tower.
• pon: Same as wall plate; a local English term.
• Pont Street Dutch: English Revival of Flemish and North-German Renaissance architecture (1870s-’80s) featuring high, stepped, shaped and ornamented gables, rubbed and molded brick, terracotta, and other elements derived from a similar revival in Belgium and The Netherlands…
• Portland stone: A limestone found in the Isle of Portland, England.
• postmedieval: The continuing use of medieval English architectural elements by the 17th-century English colonists, particularly in the Tidewater region and New England. Included steeply pitched gable roofs (often thatched), small, diamond-paned windows, and massive, decorative masonry chimneys.
• potager: Kitchen-garden, aka kail-yaird in Scotland. French potagers include the formal example, Villandry, with origins in monastery-gardens…
• poultry cross: The market cross at Salisbury, Wiltshire, England.
• prefab: Bomb-damage during the 1939-45 war obliged the British Government to establish a program to build temporary housing. This took the form of single-story dwellings, prefabricated in factories, with exteriors clad in aluminum, asbestos sheets, or concrete, and with bathrooms and kitchens (though small) fully equipped.
• Pre-Raphaelites: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The group’s intention was to reform art by rejecting what they considered to be the mechanistic approach first adopted by the Mannerist artists who succeeded Raphael and Michelangelo. They believed that the Classical poses and elegant compositions of Raphael in particular had been a corrupting influence on the academic teaching of art. Hence the name “Pre-Raphaelite.”
• Princess Anne style: A derivative of the Queen Anne style.
• print room: In English 18th century interiors and derivatives, a room decorated by affixing prints to the walls.
• prismatic billet molding: A common Norman molding consisting of a series of prisms with alternate rows staggered.
• prismatic rustication: In Elizabethan architecture, rusticated masonry with diamond-shaped projections worked on the face of every stone.
• prodigy-house: Large, showy, late-Elizabethan or Jacobean house with North-European Renaissance detailing and certain post-Gothic features, such as mullioned-and-transomed windows…
• Protectorate: The period of the Commonwealth (1649-60) in the British Isles when Oliver and then Richard Cromwell held the title of Lord Protector. It gave its name to the Protectorate style of architecture found in several country-houses of the period…
• proudwork: Masonry, found occasionally in Tudor-Gothic work, similar to flushwork, except that the freestone patterns and tracery stand in higher relief than the flint panels. From proud, meaning ‘projecting from a plane surface’ – probably only used in limited geographical areas.
• Purbeck: Dark-grey or grey-greenish hard limestone, called a marble, originating in the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, England, and almost entirely composed of univalve and bivalve remains fossilized and bound together…
• Purbeck stone: A buff limestone bearing many fossils, from the Isle of Purbeck, England.
• quantity surveyor: In England and certain of her colonies, one who draws up lists of quantities – labor and materials – upon which contractors’ tenders are based.
• Queen Anne architecture: The architecture existing in England during the short reign of Anne, 1702 to 1714. The more important structures of the reign were generally the completion of designs fixed in all of their parts before her accession, and but little that was monumental begun in her time… The buildings which are especially associated with the style are the minor country houses and many houses in the suburbs of London, built frequently of red brick, and characterized by sculpture in relief, molded or carved in the same material…
• Queen Anne detail: Design evoking historic styles of the Victorian era.
• Queen-Anne arch: Arch formed of a central semicircular arch flanked by two ‘flat’ arches constructed of brick rubbers set over tall thin side-lights on either side of a wider semi-circular-headed window, a variation on the Palladian or Venetian window known as a serliana… It is commoner in the Georgian period than in the Queen Anne.
• Regency style: The colorful neoclassic style, often combined with oriental motifs, prevalent in England between 1811 and 1830, during the Regency and reign of George IV.
• Renfrew: A British fossiliferous marble, dark gray verging on black, with bright red and white veins.
• ressaunt: Early English term for an ogee molding.
• Restoration: The re-establishment (1660) of the Stuart Monarchy in Great Britain and Ireland, so the period following this event, later in the reign of King Charles II (1660-85) referred to as the Carolean period. Restoration architecture was strongly influenced by Continental fashion, the dominant style being Baroque derived from French and Netherlandish precedents…
• Restoration furniture: Furniture that is richly carved with spiral turnings and scrolls. It was popular during the monarchy of Charles II from 1660-1688 and was produced in England.
• reversed zigzag molding: A common Norman molding consisting of a series of zigzags.
• Revivalism: Reached its apogee in 19th century architecture, notably in Britain and America.
• ridge rib: A horizontal rib marking the crown of a compartment of vaulting, characteristic of English Gothic architecture from the early 13th century on, but occasionally found on the Continent. 2. A rib which follows the ridge of a vault.
• rode: Middle English form of rood.
• roll billet molding: A common Norman molding consisting of a series of billets, which are cylindrical in cross section, usually staggered in alternate rows.
• rose molding: An ornament used especially in Norman architecture, chiefly during its later and richer period.
• round tower: In early Christian architecture, especially in Ireland, a conically capped circular tower of stone construction; used for defense.
• rowhouse: Houses that share common walls and form a row, or what the English term terraces. Town house is the elegant social promotion of the same physical space.
• ruin: Carefully contrived specially constructed ‘ruins’ (sometimes called folly) or real ruins (e.g. of a castle or abbey) were often incorporated within 18th c. English Picturesque landscapes, a fashion that spread to Europe…
• runic cross: See Celtic cross.
• Ruskinian: Relating to the ideas of the English writer, art critic, social theorist, and historian John Ruskin (1819-1900).
• Saint Andrew’s cross bond: Also see English cross bond.
• sarking: In Scotland and the north of England, thin boards for lining, sheathing, etc.
• sash window: A type of window imported to England from Holland in the late 17th century, in which the frames slide up and down vertically supported on sash cords and a pulley.
• Scotch bond: In brickwork, same as English garden wall bond.
• Scotch crown: The peculiar termination of the tower of S. Giles’s Church at Edinburgh, consisting of eight pinnacles, from each of which a sloping bar carried on a half arch and resembling a flying buttress rises, the whole eight meeting in the middle and supporting a central pinnacle. The term is applied to other terminations of towers in which only four sloping bars occur; and this form is not peculiar to Scotland. It occurs in S. Dunstan’s in East London, and elsewhere.
• Scottish Baronial: The 19th century style evolved during the Jacobethan Revival in England, with a distinctly Scottish flavor, incorporating battlements, tourelles, machicolations, and conical roofs. Derived from medieval fortified tower-houses and castles…
• scratch: In England, the first or rough coat of plaster applied to the masonry or laths. It is composed of lime, sand, and cow’s or goat’s hair in proportions varying according to the quality of the lime or local practice. In the U.S., generally called scratch or scratched coat.
• Second Pointed: Style of Gothic architecture that emerged in the late 13th c., known in England as Decorated, and developed in 14th c., during which enrichment became more elaborate, with diaper-work covering surfaces, and widespread use of the ogee form…
• seel: Old English for canopy.
• sheiling: A hut for temporary shelter. Especially, a rough shelter for shepherds and sheep in Scotland.
• shippen: In local British usage, a stable for cattle. Also see shippon.
• shippon: In local British usage, a stable for cattle. Also see shippen.
• shot window: In Scotland, an unglazed window, generally circular.
• siel: Old English for canopy.
• single measure: In England, having no moldings on either side; said of a door.
• slab plastering: Coarse plastering such as was used in filling between the beams on the exterior of half-timbered houses in England.
• slype: A narrow passage as between two buildings; a slip. 2. In some English cathedrals, a passage leading from the transept to the chapter house or to the rectory.
• snacket: Provincial English term for a casement hasp.
• sneck: A latch; local British; the term applied especially to one of several ancient forms of thumb latch. 2. To fasten with a sneck. 3. To dress stone roughly.
• soaker: In Great Britain, a piece of metal used in flashing, each piece being of the size of one of the slates or tiles of the roofing, and the soaker being laid with the slates or tiles in their courses. In the U.S., called step flashing.
• soler: Middle English term for solar. A room or apartment on an upper floor, as in an early English dwelling house.
• spere: In medieval English residences and derivatives, a fixed screen projecting from the side of a great hall, near a door, to mitigate drafts.
• spindlework: The use of multiple decorative spindles as architectural ornaments, along porch and stair railings, for example. Wood spindles are made from doweling turned on a lathe, shaped somewhat like the spindles used in spinning yarn. Associated with Queen Anne and other Victorian styles.
• spire light: A window in a spire; frequent in the Early English period, common during the Decorated, and occasional in the Perpendicular.
• square billet: A Norman molding consisting of a series of projecting cubes, with spaces between the cubes.
• square-rigger house: A colonial New England hip roof house with chimneys at both gable ends, or on both sides of a central hall, or centered between the front and back rooms. Many such houses had a widow’s walk and/or cupola on the roof.
• St Paul’s Cathedral: Iconic example of English Baroque architecture, designed by Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723).
• star molding: A common Norman molding whose surface is a succession of projecting starlike shapes.
• stee: In local British usage, a ladder or steep stair of simple form.
• steyre: Old English term for grees.
• Stonehenge: Megalithic remains on Salisbury Plain, England.
• stop-chamfer: A triangular termination to a chamfer, bringing a three-sided form back to a right angle. A popular feature in early English and Victorian architecture.
• strainer arch: Remedial arches inserted across a nave or aisle to prevent subsidence. The best known examples are that the crossing of Wells Cathedral, England.
• strap work: A method of ornamentation, especially characteristic of the time of Elizabeth in England, composed of a capricious interlacing, folding, and interpenetration of bands or fillets, sometimes represented as cut with foliations.
• Stuart: The term applied to the period of English architecture between 1625 and 1702.
• Stuart architecture: Architecture of the English Late Renaissance (1603-88).
• sunburst: An ornamental motif resembling the rays of the sun; found most often on the facades of late-Victorian buildings.
• sunburst motif: An ornamental motif resembling the rays of the sun; found most often on the facades of late-Victorian buildings.
• Sussex bond: Also see Flemish garden wall bond.
• Sussex garden wall bond: Also see Flemish garden wall bond.
• taproom: In Great Britain, the same as barroom, as being the place where liquors are drawn from the tap.
• Tecton: Association of London architects established (1932) by Lubetkin, arguable the most influential International Modernists in the UK until 1948…
• tender: The bid of a contractor, as used by the English.
• tenpenny: A size of nails perhaps so-called because nails of this size sold in England at one time for tenpence a hundred.
• tollbooth: A stall or office where tolls in any sense are to be paid; hence, by extension, in a way variously explained, a jail, especially in Scotland.
• tower-house: Compact fortified house of several story’s with its main chamber or hall on an upper story, usually over vaulted lower floors. Common in Scotland (where many spectacular examples survive) and Ireland, tower-houses were still being built in 17th c.
• town garden: Small garden to the rear of houses, regularly laid out, with trees, shrubs, and paths, evidence of which in 18th c. Bath, London, etc., can be found. 2. Garden surrounded by railings, etc., in 18th c. squares, e.g. London. 3. Front and rear gardens of detached or semi-detached suburban houses, designs of which survive in Loudon’s publications. They became common with the Garden-City movement, seen as important for family life. Domestic gardens are perceived as extensions to interior living.
• town house: Originally the secondary residence of the English country gentleman. Now not necessarily a house in town but one in an urban arrangement: i.e., row house. Town house is a classier term – to increase sales.
• townhouse: Originally the secondary residence of the English country gentleman. Now not necessarily a house in town but one in an urban arrangement: i.e., row house. Town house is a classier term – to increase sales.
• tredyl: Old English term for grees.
• Tudor: A style of English architecture prevalent during the reigns of the Tudors (1485-1558); transitional between Gothic and Palladian, with emphasis on privacy and interiors.
• Tudor arch: A low, wide, pointed arch common in the architecture of Tudor England.
• Tudor architecture: The final development of English Perpendicular Gothic architecture, during the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII (1485-1547), preceding Elizabethan architecture and characterized by four-centered arches.
• Tudor door: A door with a Tudor arch top.
• Tudor Revival: A masonry or stucco style that recalls the English architecture of the Tudor period (1485-1588), featuring steep roofs, cross gables, and massive chimneys.
• Tudor rose: A conventionalized rose pattern, usually with five petals, a superposition of white and red roses, the heraldic emblem of the Tudor dynasty.
• Tudor style: A style of English architecture prevalent during the reigns of the Tudors (1485-1558); transitional between Gothic and Palladian, with emphasis on privacy and interiors.
• turkey carpet: An English-made carpet in the Turkish style, characterized by bold colors, especially red and blue, and geometrical patterns of stylized living forms such as flowers and fruits, often with a border.
• twining stem: Molding resembling a long, thin, cylindrical rod with a stem wrapped around it, forming a spiral ornament set in a cavetto between two continuous plain bowtells, common in Romanesque work.
• twining stem molding: A common Norman molding consisting of a half round entwined by a stylized tendril.
• twisted stem: Molding resembling a long, thin, cylindrical rod with a stem wrapped around it, forming a spiral ornament set in a cavetto between two continuous plain bowtells, common in Romanesque work.
• two-pair: In a London lodging house, belonging to the third story, accessible by two flights of stairs. The two-pair front is the front room of the third story, counting from the street, or the second story in English usage.
• unit: Also see British thermal unit.
• uphers: Fir poles, 4 to 7 inches in diameter and 20 to 40 feet long, sometimes roughly hewn, used in England for scaffolding, and occasionally, when split, for slight and common roofs.
• vergeboard: The original name for bargeboard, vergeboard was used in early English wood construction. Now it is term for the decorative wooden edging on Gothic Revival and Victorian houses.
• vergeboards: The original name for bargeboard, vergeboard was used in early English wood construction. Now it is term for the decorative wooden edging on Gothic Revival and Victorian houses.
• vestry hall: In England and in some of the English colonies, a hall in which the inhabitants or ratepayers of a parish, or their representatives, meet for the dispatch of the official business of the parish.
• vicarage: In England, the home or residence of a vicar.
• vicar’s close: The lawn and landscape around an English cathedral or church, usually with other religious buildings defining its limits. Where a French or Italian cathedral would relate to street and plaza, the English one is served by its close.
• Victorian: A loosely defined catchall word. The architecture of the Industrial Revolution was largely coincidental with the reign of Victoria (1837-1901), which spanned from carpenter Greek Revival to the steel-framed skyscraper.
• Victorian architecture: A building style popular in England during the reign of Queen Victoria (1840-1901), it is characterized by picturesque forms inspired by medieval buildings.
• Victorian era: The reign of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which commenced upon the coronation of Queen Victoria on June 20, 1837 and concluded upon her death on January 22, 1901 (Victoria was also crowned the Empress of India on May 1, 1876). These years marked the height of both the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution, when the United Kingdom became a global power, and its culture, including its architecture, assimilated influences from all over the world.
• Victorian Gothic: High Victorian Gothic.
• Victorian Romanesque: A polychromatic exterior finish combined with the semi-circular arch highlight the Victorian Romanesque style. Different colored and textured stone or brick for window trim, arches, quoins and belt courses relieve the rock-faced stone finish. Decorated bricks and terra cotta tiles in conjunction with stone trim also may be used. The round arches usually supported by short polished stone columns. Foliated forms, grotesques, and arabesques decorated capitals, corbels, belt courses and arches. Windows vary in size and shape.
• Victorian rooms: The period 1876 to 1915 saw a major shift in housing standards and family ideals. The first standard, the Eclectic Manse [large, imposing residence], with its ornate decor, numerous rooms, and domestic clutter, came under attack. In its place, architects, builders, and feminists argued for a more modern, progressive, Comfortable House. Reformers who advocated building California bungalows instead of Queen Anne villas similarly pressed for household equipment that would be simple, easy to clean, labor saving and efficient.
• Victorian styles: The primary Victorian styles and their origins are as follows: Gothic Revival – English Middle Ages, i.e., the Tudor dynasty; Italianate – Rural Italy; Second Empire – French Baroque Revival during Napoleon III’s reign; Stick – Alpine architecture; Queen Anne – 17th century England; Richardsonian Romanesque – American adaptation of Romanesque style; Shingle – American return to English Colonial style in the New World where forests were easily accessible for building; Colonial Revival – H. H. Richardson-inspired examination of American roots in New England; Renaissance – not to be confused with the Second Renaissance Revival, a Beaux Arts substyle.
• virtified work: Masonry, especially of silicious stone, converted into hard glassy substance by fire and thus greatly solidified, as in certain early defensive works found in Scotland, France, etc. Argillaceous earth is sometimes so converted and used for ballast in railroad work to solidify the backing between the ties, and in paving. It is called gumbo.
• walled garden: Area enclosed by walls used for specific purposes, e.g. for growing herbs, vegetables (kitchen-garden), flowers, or fruit (often associated with greenhouses, heated walls, etc.). In America, Shipman’s walled gardens were often enclosed with curtains of evergreens.
• waltham cross: See Cross of Queen Eleanor.
• water check: In British usage, a small strip, usually of metal, applied to a sill so that a door or casement will shut against it, thus preventing the entrance of water. Same as water bar.
• Wealden house: Medieval timber-framed dwelling-type found mainly in the South-East of England, and named after the Weald, a district, once forested, between the North and South Downs. It consists of an open hall the full height of the structure with a two-story bay on each side of the hall, having a single roof in one direction over the whole, the ridge of the pitched roof (sometimes hipped) following the length…
• weatherboard: An English term for clapboard or beveled siding.
• weatherboards: An English term for clapboard or beveled siding.
• widow’s walk: A walkway or narrow platform on a roof, especially on early New England homes with a view of the sea.
• William & Mary: Architectural style of the reigns of King William III (r.1689-1702) and Queen Mary II (r.1689-94) in Great Britain, coming mid-way between the French-inspired Baroque of the Restoration and the Queen-Anne period. It embraced influences from William’s own country, The Netherlands, and was leavened by themes from France brought over by Huguenot refugees after the Revocation (1685) of the Edict of Nantes (1598 – which had given French Protestants equality of citizenship). It also included an exotic thread in that it had a taste for oriental motifs from China which led to the beginnings of Chinoiserie.
• woodland garden: The 19th century garden formed in acidic woodland soils, featuring non-native species, e.g. hydrangeas, rhododendrons, etc., augmented in the late 19th-early 20th c. by the introduction of further imported varieties from Asia, etc…
• wynd: In Scotland, an alley, a lane; especially a narrow alley in a town forming a passage from street to street.
• xylotechnigraphy: Decoration of wood by staining, graining, and finishing to resemble a more expensive and finer wood, patented in England c.1871.
• Yorkshire bond: A standard bricklaying arrangement modifying Flemish bond.

Also see Architecture Origin index.

Also see Architecture index.