Copy of `Castles on the Web - Castle Terms`

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Castles on the Web - Castle Terms Category: Architecture and Buildings > Castles Date & country: 10/09/2007, USA Words: 251

Abacus
Flat portion on top of a capital.

Aisle
Space between arcade and outer wall.

Allure
Walkway along the top of a wall.

Ambulatory
Aisle round an apse.

Apse
Rounded and usually of a chancel or chapel.

Arcade
Row of arches, free-standing and supported on piers or columns; a blind arcade is a 'dummy'.

Arch
Can be round-headed, pointed, two-centered, or drop; ogee

Arrow Loop
A narrow vertical slit cut into a wall through which arrows could be fired from inside.

Ashlar
Squared blocks of smooth stone neatly trimmed to shape.

Aumbry
Recess to hold sacred vessels; typically in a chapel.

Bailey
The ward or courtyard inside the castle walls, includes exercise area, parade ground, emergency corral

Baluster
A small column.

Balustrade
A railing, as along a path or stairway.

Bar hole
Horizontal hole for timber bar used as a door-bolt.

Barbican
The gateway or outworks defending the drawbridge.

Barrel vault
Cylindrical roof.

Bartizan
An overhanging battlemented corner turret, corbelled out; sometimes as grandiose as an overhanging gallery; common in Scotland and France.

Bastion
A small tower at the end of a curtain wall or in the middle of the outside wall; solid masonry projection; structural rather than inhabitable.

Batter
A sloping part of a curtain wall. The sharp angle at the base of all walls and towers along their exterior surface; talus.

Battlement
Parapet with indentations or embrasures, with raised portions (merlons) between; crenelations; a narrow wall built along the outer edge of the wall walk for protection against attack.

Bay
Internal division of building marked by roof principals or vaulting piers.

Belvedere
A raised turret or pavillion.

Berm
Flat space between the base of the curtain wall and the inner edge of the moat; level area separating ditch from bank.

Bivalate
A hillfort defended by two concentric ditches.

Blockhouse
Small square fortification, usually of timber bond overlapping arrangement of bricks in courses (flemish, dutch, french, etc.)

Bonnet
Freestanding fortification; priest's cap.

Boss
Central stone of arch or vault; key stone.

Brattice
Timber tower or projecting wooden gallery; hoarding.

Breastwork
Heavy parapet slung between two gate towers; defense work over the portcullis.

Bressumer
Beam to support a projection.

Broch
Drystone freestanding tower with interior court, no external windows (which face into the court), spiral stair inside wall, typically iron age Celtic refuge in Scotland.

Burg
German stronghold.

Burh
Saxon stronghold; literally a 'neighborhood'.

Buttery
Next to the kitchen, a room from where wine was dispensed.

Buttress
Wall projection for extra support; flying

Capital
Distinctly treated upper end of a column.

Carotid
Heart-shaped.

Casemates
Artillery emplacements in separate protected rooms, rather than in a battery.

Cesspit
The opening in a wall in which the waste from one or more garderobes was collected.

Chamfer
Surface made by smoothing off the angle between two stone faces.

Chancel
The space surrounding the altar of a church.

Chemise wall
Formed by a series of interlinked or overlapping semicircular bastions.

Chevron
Zig-zag moulding.

Choir
The part of a cruciform church east of the crossing.

Clasping
Encasing the angle.

Clunch
Hard chalky material.

Cob
Unburned clay mixed with straw.

Column
Pillar (circular section).

Concentric
Having two sets of walls, one inside the other.

Coping
Covering stones.

Corbel
A projecting block of stone built into a wall during construction; step-wise construction, as in an arch, roof, etc.

Corinthian
Elaborately foliated capital.

Cornice
Decorative projection along the top of a wall.

Counterguard
A long, near-triangular freestanding fortification within the moat.

Counterscarp
Outer slope of ditch.

Course
Level layer of stones or bricks.

Crannog
Celtic Scotland timber-built fortified lake village.

Creasing
þ-shaped mark on a wall, marking the pitch of a former roof.

Crenel
The low segment of the alternating high and low segments of a battlement.

Crenelation
Battlements at the top of a tower or wall.

Crocket
Curling leaf-shape.

Cross-and-orb
Modified cross slits to accommodate gunnery.

Crosswall
Interior dividing wall; structural.

Crownwork
Freestanding bastioned fortification in front of main defenses.

Cupola
Hemispherical armored roof.

Curtain Wall
A connecting wall hung between two towers surrounding the bailey.

Cushion
Capital cut from a block by rounding off the lower corners.

Cusp
Curves meeting in a point.

Cyclopean
Drystone masonry, ancient, of huge blocks.

Daub
A mud of clay mixture applied over wattle to strengthen and seal it.

Dead-ground
Close to the wall, where the defenders can't shoot.

Diaper work
Decoration of squares or lozenges.

Diaphragm
Wall running up to the roof-ridge.

Dog-legged
With right-angle bends.

Dogtooth
Diagonal indented pyramid.

Donjon
A great tower or keep.

Dormer
Window placed vertically in sloping roof.

Double-splayed
Embrasure whose smallest aperture is in the middle of the wall.

Drawbridge
A heavy timber platform built to span a moat between a gatehouse and surrounding land that could be raised when required to block an entrance.

Dressing
Carved stonework around openings.

Drum Tower
A large, circular, low, squat tower built into a wall.

Drystone
Unmortared masonry.

Dungeon
The jail, usually found in one of the towers.

Embattled
Battlemented; crenelated.

Embrasure
The low segment of the altering high and low segments of a battlement.

Enceinte
The enclosure or fortified area of a castle.

Fascine
Huge bundle of brushwood for revetting ramparts or filling in ditches.

Fillet
Narrow flat band.

Finial
A slender piece of stone used to decorate the tops of the merlons, spire, tower, balustrade, etc.

Fluting
Concave mouldings in parallel.

Foliated
Carved with leaves.

Footings
Bottom part of wall.

Forebuilding
An extension to the keep, guarding it's entrance.

Fosse
Ditch.

Freestone
High quality sand- or lime-stone.

Fresco
Painting on wet plaster wall.

Gable
Wall covering end of roof ridge.

Gallery
Long passage or room.

Garderobe
A small latrine or toilet either built into the thickness of the wall or projected out from it; ; projects from the wall as a small, rectangular bartizan

Gate House
The complex of towers, bridges, and barriers built to protect each entrance through a castle or town wall.