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The tower of Babel was built by the people of Babylon in an attempt to reach heaven.
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In architecture, back filling refers to the mass of materials used in filling up the space between two walls, or between the inner and outer faces of a wall, or upon the haunches of an arch or vault.
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In building, the term back priming refers to coating up, for protective purposes, those parts of a structure and those materials which will be out of sight when the building is completed. Wooden door and window frames, for example, are back primed prior to being fitted as their back edges are in contact with brickwork after being fitted, and liable to come into contact with moisture.
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Back putty (bedding putty) is the putty which is run into a window frame and into which the pane of glass is bedded.
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In architecture a backjoint is a rebate or chase in masonry left to receive a permanent slab or other filling.
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Backstein Gothic describes a distinctive style of Gothic architecture that developed in northern Germany during the 14th century. The Backstein Gothic is a simplified form of Gothic architecture employing brick due to an absence of natural building stone. Because of the nature of the building materials available, the Backstein Gothic lacks decoration and instead uses large expanses of simple unbroken surfaces and enormous vertical windows.
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Badger hair is peculiar in that the hairs taper both to the root and the tip, and when made into a decorator's brush forms a compact and sturdy mass with widely separated tips resulting in a brush used for softening and graining.
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In architecture, a bague is the annular moulding or group of mouldings dividing a long shaft or clustered column into two or more parts.
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In architecture, a balcony is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, usually resting on brackets or consoles, and enclosed by a parapet; for example as a balcony in front of a window. The term is also applied to a projecting gallery in places of amusement; for example the balcony in a theatre.
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In architecture a baldachin or baldacchino, is a structure in form of a canopy, sometimes supported by columns, and sometimes suspended from the roof or projecting from the wall; generally placed over an altar; as in the baldachin over the High Altar in St. Peter's. Baldachins are common in Baroque churches.
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In architecture a ball-flower is an ornament resembling a ball placed in a circular flower, the three petals of which form a cup round it. They are usually inserted in a hollow moulding. Ball-flower ornaments occur chiefly in the Decorated style of 14th century Gothic architecture, but it sometimes occurs, though rarely, in buildings of the 13th century, or Early English style, as in the west front of Salisbury cathedral, where it is mixed with the tooth ornament: it is however rarely found in that style, and is an indication that the work is late. A flower resembling this, except that it has four petals, is occasionally found in very late Norman work, but it is used with other flowers and ornaments, and not represented in long suits, as in the Decorated style.
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In architecture the term balloon describes a ball or globe on the top of a pillar, church, etc., as at St Paul's Cathedral in London.
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In architecture a baluster (now banister) is a small column or pilaster, used as a support to the rail of an open parapet, to guard the side of a staircase, or the front of a gallery.
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In architecture a balustrade is a row of balusters topped by a rail, serving as an open parapet, as along the edge of a balcony, terrace, bridge, staircase, or the eaves of a building.
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In architecture the term band describes a continuous tablet, stripe, or series of ornaments, such as carved foliage, of colour, or of brickwork, etc. In Gothic architecture, band describes the moulding, or suite of mouldings, which encircles the pillars and small shafts, the use of which was most prevalent in the Early English style. Bands of this description are not infrequently me with in very late Norman work, but they show that it is verging towards the succeeding style; they are also to be found in early Decorated work. When the shafts are long they are often encircled by several bands at equal distances apart between the cap and base.
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In architecture the term bandelet describes a small band or fillet; any little band or flat moulding, compassing a column, like a ring.
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A banker is the name given to the stone bench on which masons cut and square their work.
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In architecture a banquette is a narrow window seat or a raised shelf at the back or the top of a buffet or dresser.
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In early times, a baptistery was a cold plunging-bath, and from the 4th century a Christian baptismal pool, from whence the term evolved to describe a separate building, usually polygonal in shape, sometimes round, used for baptismal services. Small churches were often changed into baptisteries when larger churches were built close by. The term is also applied to that part of a church containing a font and used for baptismal services.
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In architecture, bar tracery is an ornamental stonework resembling bars of iron twisted into the forms required.
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In architecture bargeboard (barge-board) or vergeboard is the ornament of woodwork upon the gable of a house where the covering of the roof extends over the wall, used extensively in the 15th century. It was generally suspended from the edge of the projecting roof and in a position parallel to the gable wall, covering the rafters which would otherwise be exposed or occupying the place of a rafter.
Early bargeboards are known to exist from the 14th century; these generally have a bold and rich effect from their being deeply cut. They are very commonly formed into featherings or cusps, with one or two subordinate series of featherings, the spandrels being either carved or pierced with trefoils etc., as at the north porch of Horsemonden church, Kent, and the George Inn at Salisbury; sometimes a series of small tracery panels is used in addition to these featherings, as at Salisbury.
After the 14th century bargeboards were used most abundantly, and of a very many designs, and they often supported a hipknob on the point of the gable, the upper part of which rises above the roof and terminates in a pinnacle, while the lower part hangs as a pendant below the bargeboard, or a pendant alone was used without any pinnacle above the roof, as at Eltham palace.
Many bargeboards of the 15th century have a very rich and beautiful effect, although for the most part they are less deeply cut than those of earlier dates; they are usually either feathered, or panelled, or pierced with a series of trefoils, quatrefoils etc, and the spandrels carved with foliage; when feathered, the cusps or points of the principal featherings have flowers sometimes carved on them. As Gothic architecture advanced, the bargeboard continued gradually (though with some exceptions) to lose much of their bold and rich effect, and in late work they are frequently merely carved with a line of stiff foliage in very low relief; they are also often without ant enrichment beyond a few plain, straight mouldings.
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A bargecourse is the part of the tiling which projects beyond the principal rafters, in buildings where there is a gable.
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A bark-stove or bark-bed is a sort of hothouse for forcing or for growing plants that require a great heat combined with moisture, both of which are supplied by the fermentation that sets up in a bed of spent tanner's bark contained in a brick pit under glass.
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Baroque is a term first applied to ill-shaped pearls, but now denoting fantastic, bizarre, and decadent forms in art and even in nature. It is especially used in connection with an architectural style. Baroque is a European style of architecture confined to churches and palaces.
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A barracoon was formerly a Negro barrack or slave depot. They were formerly plentiful on the west coast of Africa, in Cuba, Brazil, etc.
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In architecture, a barrel drain is a drain in the form of a cylindrical tube.
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A barrel top pot is a chimney pot with a top shaped like a barrel lying on its side, open at both sides.
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In architecture a barrel vault (Cradle vault, cylindrical vault or wagon vault) is a kind of vault having two parallel abutments, and the same section or profile at all points. It may be rampant, as over a staircase or curved in plan, as around the apse of a church.
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A barrow is a mound of earth or stones raised to mark the resting-place of the dead. Barrows are distinguished, according to their shape, as long, bowl, bell, cone, broad barrows. The practice of barrow-burial is of unknown antiquity and almost universal, barrows being found all over Europe, in Northern Africa, Asia Minor, Afghanistan, Western India, and in America. In the earliest barrows the enclosed bodies were simply laid upon the ground, with stone or bone implements and weapons beside them. In barrows of later date the remains are generally enclosed in a stone cist. Frequently cremation preceded the erection of the barrow, the ashes being enclosed in an urn or cist. A detailed description of an ancient barrow-burial is given in the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf.
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In architecture, a bartizan is a small, overhanging structure for lookout or defence, usually projecting at an angle of a building or near an entrance gateway, and pierced with one or more apertures for archers.
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In architecture, the base is the lower part of a pillar, wall, etc. The term is also given to the division of a column on which the shaft is placed. The Grecian Doric order has no base, but the other classical orders have each their appropriate bases, which are divided into plinth and mouldings, though in some examples the former of these divisions is omitted. The height of the base is usually equal to about half the lower diameter of the shaft of the column; that used with the Tuscan order has a simple torus for its moulding, surmounted by a fillet; the Roman Doric has usually a base of the same kind, with the addition of an astragal between the torus and fillet; the bases used with the Ionic order vary, but the Attic base is very common; this consists of two tori, with a scotia between, separated by small fillets, the forms and proportions of which differ in different examples, and. in some instances this base is without a plinth: at the temples of Minerva Polias at Priene, and of Apollo Didymaeus, near Miletus, bases are used with this order, consisting of two scotise, with two astragals, both below and above, as well as between them, over which is a large overhanging torus.
In the Corinthian and Composite orders the bases vary as they do in the Ionic, and the Attic base is also frequently used, but perhaps the most common is a base resembling the Attic, but with two scotise between the tori, separated by one or two astragals and fillets; the bases of these two orders differ very little from each other.
In middle age architecture, the forms and proportions of the various members not being regulated by arbitrary rules, as in the classical orders, the same capricious varieties are found in the bases, as in all the other features of each of the successive styles.
In the Norman style the mouldings of the base often bear a resemblance to those of the Tuscan order, with a massive plinth which is most commonly square, even though the shaft of the pillar and the moulded part of the base may be circular or octagonal, and when this is the case, there are very frequently leaves or other prominent ornaments springing out of the mouldings and lying on the angles of the plinth: there is often a second or subplinth, under the Norman base, the projecting angle of which is chamfered off. In the earlier period of this style the bases generally have but few mouldings, but they increase in numbers and vary in their arrangement as the style advances, and not infrequently bear a very close resemblance to the Attic base of the ancients, especially as they approach the period of transition to the Early English style; this however is not always the case, for many of the later bases have but little moulding on them.
At the commencement of the Early English style the bases differ only a little from the Norman, frequently having a single or double plinth, retaining the square form, with leaves springing out of the mouldings lying on the angles: at a later period the plinth commonly takes the same form as the mouldings, and is often made so high as to resemble a pedestal, and there is frequently a second moulding below the principal suit
Of the base, as at the Temple church, London. In this style the mouldings of the base sometimes overhang the face of the plinth. The mouldings of the Early English bases do not vary as much as those of the other styles; those which are most common are very similar to the Attic base, although the relative proportions of the members are different, the upper torus frequently being reduced to a mere bead, and the scotia being contracted in width and cut much deeper, which produces a strongly marked and very effective shadow.
In the Decorated style there is considerable variety in the bases, although they generally don't have many mouldings. The plinths, like the mouldings, conform to the shape of the shaft, or they are sometimes made octagonal, while the mouldings are circular, and in this case the mouldings overhang the face of the plinth; in some examples, where the shaft of the pillar is circular, the upper member only of the base conforms to it, the other mouldings, as well as the plinth, becoming octagonal. The plinths are often double and of considerable height, the projecting angle of the lower one being worked either with a splay, a hollow, or small moulding. A common suit of mouldings for bases in this style consists of a torus (which overhangs the plinth) and one or two beads above it, as at Merton college chapel, Oxford.
In the Perpendicular style the plinths of the bases are almost invariably octagonal, and of considerable height, and very frequently double, the projection of the lower one being moulded with a reversed ogee or a hollow. When the shaft is circular, the whole of the mouldings of the base sometimes follow the same form, but sometimes only the upper member conforms to it, the others being made octagonal like the plinth. In clustered pillars in which there are small shafts of different sizes, their bases are often on different levels, and consist of different mouldings, with only one or two members carried round the pillar, which are commonly those on the upper part of the lower plinth. The characteristic moulding of the Perpendicular base is the reversed ogee used either singly or double. When double there is frequently a bead between them. This moulding when used for the lower and most prominent member of the base, has the upper angle rounded
off, which gives it a peculiar wavy appearance. The mouldings in this style most commonly overhang the face of the plinth.
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In architecture, a base-moulding or base-table is a projecting moulding or band of moulding near the bottom of a wall etc. A base-moulding is sometimes placed immediately upon the top of the plinth, and sometimes a short distance above it, in which case the intervening space is frequently panelled in circles, quatrefoils etc.
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A basement is the outer wall of the ground story of a building, or of a part of that story, when treated as a distinct substructure and also describes the rooms of a ground floor, collectively.
In ordinary houses the lower story is not called a basement unless partly below the surface of the ground. In larger buildings, in which an architectural arrangement is introduced, the lower story, even if above the ground, is called a basement; if in the composition it serves as a pedestal or substructure for the main order of the architecture. The word appears to be sometimes used to signify a Stylobate, or almost any sort of substructure.
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Originally a basilica was the palace of a king; but afterwards, the term applied to an apartment provided in the houses of persons of importance, where assemblies were held for dispensing justice; and hence, the term is applied to any large hall used for this purpose. The Roman basilica was used by the Romans as a place of public meeting, with court rooms, etc., attached. The term basilica also describes a church building of the earlier centuries of Christianity, the plan of which was taken from the basilica of the Romans. The name is still applied to some churches by way of honorary distinction.
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Basso-rilievo or bas-relief, is an architectural term for a sculptured work in which the figures project less than half their true proportions.
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In architecture, bastard ashlar is the name given to the stones used for ashlar work, roughly squared at the quarry.
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A bastel house is a home in which the residential quarters are above a livestock shelter and storage space.
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A batement light is a window or one division of a window having vertical sides, but with the sill not horizontal, as where it follows the rake of a staircase.
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A batten door is a door made of boards of the whole length of the door, secured by battens nailed crosswise.
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In architecture, battening describes furring done with small pieces nailed directly upon the wall.
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In architecture, the term batter describes something, usually a wall, which slopes inwards. Wharf walls and walls built to support embankments and fortifications generally batter.
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In architecture, a battlement is a notched or embattled parapet consisting of alternating merlons (solid uprights) and embrasures (the gaps) in ancient fortifications. At first battlements were purely a military feature, but were afterwards copied on a smaller scale with decorative features and used for churches and other buildings.
In the earlier battlements the embrasures appear to have been narrow in proportion to the size of the merlons. On ecclesiastical buildings the battlements are often richly panelled, or pierced with circles, trefoils, quatrefoils, etc, and the coping is frequently continued up the sides of the merlons so as to form a continuous line round them, as at St Peter's in Dorchester. On fortifications the battlements are generally quite plain, or pierced only with a very narrow, cruciform, or upright opening, the ends of which often, terminate in circles, called oillets, through which archers could shoot: sometimes the coping on the top of the merlons is carried over the embrasures, producing nearly the appearance of a pierced parapet, as at the leaning tower at Caerphilly. Occasionally on military structures figures of warriors or animals are carved on the tops of the merlons, as at Ainwick and Chepstow castles. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, and afterwards, battlements are very frequently used in ecclesiastical work as ornaments on cornices, tabernacle work, and other minor features, and in the Perpendicular style are sometimes found on the transoms of windows. It is remarkable that the use of this ornament is almost entirely confined to the English styles of Gothic architecture.
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A bay window is a window forming a bay or recess in a room, and projecting outwards from the wall either in a rectangular, polygonal, or semicircular form, often corruptly called a bow window (a bay window reaches the ground, a bow window does not). Bay windows do not appear to have been used earlier than the Perpendicular style, but at that period they were very frequently employed, particularly in halls, where they are invariably found at one end, and sometimes at both ends, of the dais, and the lights are generally considerably longer than those of the other windows, so as to reach much nearer to the floor. Semicircular bay-windows were not used until Gothic architecture had begun to lose its purity, and were at no period so common as the other forms.
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In architecture, bays are the principal compartments or divisions in the architectural arrangement of a building, marked either by buttresses or pilasters on the walls, by the disposition the main ribs of the vaulting of the interior, by the main arches and pillars, the principals of the roof, or by any other leading features that separate the building into corresponding portions. The term bay is also sometimes used for the space between the mullions of a window, properly called a light; it is occasionally found corrupted into day.
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In architecture a bead or astragal is a small moulding of rounded surface, the section being usually an arc of a circle. It may be continuous, or broken into short embossments. Beads are sometimes cut into pearls or other ornaments in Grecian and Roman architecture, in which beads occur much more frequently than in Gothic architecture.
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The beaded base pot is a variation of the plain beaded pot clay chimney pot, comprising a plain, straight clay cylinder pot with a bead around the upper part of the body and a thickened base section.
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A beaded pot or common beaded pot is a plain, straight-sided clay chimney pot with a rounded lip or bead around the top part of the body.
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In architecture a beak is a continuous slight projection ending in an arris or narrow fillet forming that part of a drip from which the water is thrown off.
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In architecture a beakhead is an ornament that was used in rich Norman doorways, resembling a head with a beak.
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In masonry, the term bed describes the direction in which the natural strata in stones lie. The term bed is also applied to the top and bottom surface of stones when worked for building.
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In architecture, bed-moulding describes the moulding of a cornice immediately below the corona.
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Bedlam, a corruption of Bethlehem (Hospital), was the name of a religious house in London, converted, after the general suppression by Henry VIII, into a hospital for the mentally ill. The original Bedlam stood in Bishopsgate Street, its modern successor is in St George's Fields. The patients were at one time treated as little better than wild beasts, and hence Bedlam came to be typical of any scene of wild confusion.
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A beehive house is a primitive structure built generally of unhewn stones without cement, and having a domed roof, reminiscent of a straw beehive.
Beehive houses are principally found in Scotland and Ireland, dating in age from ancient times to the 19th century with some being inhabited still at the start of the 20th century. Some, believed to be monastic are to be found on the islands off the coast of Kerry, with five remarkable examples on the island of St Michael's Rock, the largest of which is circular outside, rectangular within measuring 15 feet by twelve feet. The walls are usually about seven or eight feet high, converging internally to an apex at a height of 16.5 feet.
Beehive houses in Scotland were described at the start of the 20th century as being of a similar construction to their Irish counterparts, with the walls covered with grass and weeds to keep the wind and rain out, and with two rooms; one room for living and the other used as a store house or dairy.
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A Beehive Pot is a chimney pot consisting of a straight, round tube, which tapers suddenly but slightly towards the top and is terminated usually with a round lip. Beehive pots resemble the Ogee Pot, but have straight sides below the top taper, rather than tapering in towards the base.
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Originally a belfry was a military siege tower which was pushed against the wall of a fortress being besieged so that missiles could be easily thrown down upon the defenders inside. Later the term was applied to a church steeple, particularly a bell-tower or campanile, usually forming part of a church, but sometimes detached from it, as at Evesham, Worcester and Berkeley in Gloucestershire; at Chichester cathedral etc.
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In architecture, bell describes that part of the capital of a Corinthian or Composite column included between the abacus and neck moulding; the term is also used for the naked core of a nearly cylindrical shape, assumed to exist within the leafage of a capital. The name is also applied to the Early English and other capitals in Gothic architecture which partake of a similar form.
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A bell arch is an unusual form of arch, following the curve of an ogee.
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A bell roof is a roof shaped according to the general lines of a bell.
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A bell-gable or bell-turret is a gable in which a bell or bells are suspended so that they may be rung. Bell-gables frequently occur in small churches and chapels that don't have a tower, being erected in the west end of the church. Sometimes the bell-gable contains one, sometimes two and occasionally three bells. Some bell-gables are thought to be Norman, but most of the known bell-gables are Early English, in which style they appear to have been common. Bell-gables are often picturesque.
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In architecture belly refers to the hollow part of a curved or bent timber, the convex part of which is the back.
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A belvedere is a small building, or a part of a building, more or less open, constructed on top of a house in a location commanding a fine prospect (belvedere being Italian for 'a fine prospect').
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In architecture a bema was that part of an early Christian church which was reserved for the higher clergy; the inner or eastern part of the chancel.
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In architecture a bench table is a projecting course at the base of a building, or round a pillar, sufficient to form a seat.
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In the Ethiopic church, a Bethlehem is a small building attached to a church edifice, in which the bread for the Eucharist is made.
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Beton is a concrete composed of lime and gravel, formerly used to form artificial foundations on insecure sites.
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In architecture, a bevel is a sloped or canted surface resembling a splay, except that strictly the term splay should only be applied to openings which have their sides sloped for the purpose of enlarging them, while a sloped surface in another situation would be called a bevel. However, the two terms are generally interchanged.
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In architecture, a bilection is that portion of a group of mouldings which projects beyond the general surface of a panel.
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In architecture, a billet-moulding is an ornament used in string courses and the archivolts of windows and doors. It consists of cylindrical blocks with intervals, the blocks lying lengthwise of the cornice, sometimes in two rows, breaking joint.
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In architecture, a binding beam is the main timber in double flooring.
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In architecture a binding joist is the secondary timber in double-framed flooring.
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In architecture, a bird's-beak is a moulding whose section is thought to resemble a beak.
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In architecture a bird's-mouth (or crow's foot) is an interior angle or notch cut across a piece of timber, for the reception of the edge of another, as that in a rafter to be laid on a plate.
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Bishop pots were various designs of clay chimney pot characterised by a serrated top with eight triangles. Various different body decorations were produced, making varieties such as the Lancashire bishop pot and the Leeds bishop pot.
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The Black Hole of Calcutta was a small chamber, 20 feet square, in the old fort of Calcutta, in which, after their capture by Surajah Dowlah, the whole garrison of 146 men were confined during the night of June the 21st, 1756. Only twenty-three of the captives survived. The spot is now marked by a monument.
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In architecture, a black house is an old style of British home. The black house was a long, single-storey cottage of dry stone walls and roofed with turf or straw.
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Blackfriars Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames in London commenced in 1864 it was completed in 1869 at a cost of 265,000 pounds from the designs of J Cubitt, although the original design by Page, the architect of Westminster Bridge had first been accepted. Blackfriars Bridge crosses the Thames in five spans, the piers being made of granite surmounted by recesses resting on short pillars of polished red Aberdeen granite and with ornamental stone parapets. Originally the bridge was gilded providing a very dramatic and rich appearance.
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In architecture the principal rafters of a roof are known as the blade or backs.
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In architecture, a blank door or blank window is a depression in a wall of the size of a door or window, either for symmetrical effect, or for the more convenient insertion of a door or window at a future time, should it be needed.
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In architecture, the term blank jamb refers to a vertical door-frame member which has not been prepared to receive hardware.
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In sign writing, a blender is a short, square-ended brush, generally made of sable or ox hair, and used for blending light and dark colours in shaded effects.
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In architecture, blocage is the roughest and cheapest sort of rubblework, used in masonry.
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In architecture, the blocking course is the finishing course of a wall showing above a cornice at the top of a Greek or Roman building. The term blocking-course is also given to a course of stone or brick forming a projecting line without mouldings at the base of a building.
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In decorating, the term blueing applies to the adding of a small amount of blue to certain white pigments or paints in order to neutralise their yellowish tint and make them appear whiter.
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A boaster is a stone mason's broad-faced chisel. Preparing stone with a boaster is known as boasting.
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In architecture bolection is another name for a bilection.
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In architecture a bolster is the rolls forming the ends or sides of the Ionic capital.
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In architecture, bolster work refers to members which are bellied or curved outward like cushions, as in the friezes of certain classical styles.
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In architecture a bond is the union or tie of the several stones or bricks forming a wall. The bricks may be arranged for this purpose in several different ways, as in English or block bond, where one course consists of bricks with their ends toward the face of the wall, called headers, and the next course of bricks with their lengths parallel to the face of the wall, called stretchers; Flemish bond, where each course consists of headers and stretchers alternately, so laid as always to break joints; Cross bond, which differs from the English by the change of the second stretcher line so that its joints come in the middle of the first, and the same position of stretchers comes back every fifth line; Combined cross and English bond, where the inner part of the wall is laid in the one method, the outer in the other.
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In architecture, bonders, also known as bond-stones and binding-stones, are stones which reach a considerable distance into, or entirely through a wall for the purpose of binding it together. Bonders are principally used when the work is faced with ashlar, and are inserted at intervals to tie it more securely to the rough walling or backing.
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In building, bonderising refers to the chemical treatment of small metal units rendered rust inhibitive and suitable for painting.
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In masonry, a bondstone is a stone running through a wall from one face to another, to bind it together.
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In architecture, a boss is a projecting ornament placed at the intersection of the ribs of ceilings, whether vaulted or flat, and in other situations. Bosses are also used as a termination to weather-mouldings of doors, windows, etc, and in various other situations, either as an ornamental stop, or finishing, to mouldings, or to cover them where they intersect each other, but the principal application is to vaulted ceilings. In Norman work the vaults are most commonly without bosses until the later part of the style, and when used they are generally not very prominent nor very richly carved. In the succeeding styles bosses are used in profusion, though less abundantly in the Early English than in the Decorated and Perpendicular, and are generally elaborately carved.
Early English bosses are usually sculptured with foliage characteristic of the style among which small figures and animals are sometimes introduced, but occasionally a small circle of mouldings, corresponding with those of the ribs, is used in the place of a carved boss.
In the Decorated style, the bosses usually consist of foliage, heads, animals etc, or of foliage combined with heads and animals, and sometimes shields charged with armorial bearings are used.
Many of the Perpendicular bosses bear a strong resemblance to the decorated, but there is generally the same difference in the execution of the foliage that is found in all the other features of the style, and the heads and animals are usually less delicately worked. Shields with armourial bearings are used abundantly in Perpendicular work and there is considerably greater variation in the bosses of this style than any other. Sometimes they are made to represent a flat sculptured ornament attached to the underside of the ribs; sometimes they resemble small pendants, which are occasionally pierced, as in the porch of Dursely church in Gloucestershire.
The name boss is also given to a wooden vessel used for the mortar used in tiling or masonry, which is hung by a hook from the laths, or from the rounds of a ladder.
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In architecture, bossage describes a stone in a building, left rough and projecting, to be afterward carved into shape. The term is also applied to Rustic work, consisting of stones which seem to advance beyond the level of the building, by reason of indentures or channels left in the joinings.
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A bothie (or bothy) is a house, usually of one room, for the accommodation of a number of workmen engaged in the same employment. Bothies were most common in the north-east of Scotland, and were chiefly used for the accommodation of unmarried male farm servants engaged on the larger farms, who as a rule had to do their cooking and keep the bothie in order for themselves. The bothie system was often condemned.
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A boudoir is a small room, elegantly fitted up, destined for retirement (hence the name which derives from the French bonder, to pout, to be sulky). The boudoir is the peculiar property of the lady, where only her most intimate friends are admitted.
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A boulevard was formerly the ramparts of a fortified town, but when these were levelled, and the whole planted with trees and laid out as promenades, the name boulevard was still retained. Modern usage applies it also to many streets which are broad and planted with trees, although they were not originally ramparts. The most famous boulevards are those of Paris.
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In architecture, a boultel is a moulding, the convexity of which is one fourth of a circle, being a member just below the abacus in the Tuscan and Roman Doric capital. the term is also applied to one of the shafts of a clustered column.
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A bow window is a elliptically curved window projecting from the face of a wall. Bow windows originated with the late Gothic style. While a bay window reaches to the ground, a bow window differs in not reaching the ground.
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A bower or bowre is a lady's private room, chamber or parlour, as found in ancient castles and mansions.
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A bowtell, boutell or boltell was an old English term for a round architectural moulding or bead. The term was also applied to the small shafts of clustered pillars, windows and door jambs, mullions etc
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In architecture, a box beam is a beam made of metal plates so as to have the form of a long box.
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In architecture a box drain is a drain constructed with upright sides, and with a flat top and bottom.
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In architecture box girder is another name for a box beam.
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In architecture, boxing is the external case of thin material used to bring any member to a required form.
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In architecture a brace is a piece of material used to transmit, or change the direction of, weight or pressure; any one of the pieces, in a frame or truss, which divide the structure into triangular parts. It may act as a tie, or as a strut, and serves to prevent distortion of the structure, and transverse strains in its members. A boiler brace is a diagonal stay, connecting the head with the shell. Hence braces is the name given to the timbers of a roof which serve to strut or prop the backs, or principal rafters, into which the upper ends are framed, the lower ends being framed into the foot of the king-post, or queen-post, as the case may be.
In scaffolding, a brace is a tube inserted diagonally in a scaffold to give stability and to prevent the tendency for the framework to fold.
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In architecture a bracket is an ornamental projection from the face of a wall, to support a statue etc. They are sometimes nearly plain, or ornamented only with mouldings, but are generally carved either into heads, foliage, angels or animals. Brackets are often found on the walls in the inside of churches, especially at the east end of the chancel and aisles, where they supported statues which were placed near the altars. It is not always easy to distinguish a bracket from a corbel, and in some cases indeed one name is as correct as the other.
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In architecture, brattishing is carved openwork, as of a shrine, battlement, or parapet.
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A breakwater is a work constructed in front of a harbour to serve as a protection against the violence of the waves. The name is also given to any structure which is erected in the sea with the object of breaking the force of the waves without and producing a calm within, such as the common breakwaters found extending into the sea along Britain's coasts.
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In architecture a breastsummer (brestsummer, bressummer or bressumer) is a summer or girder extending across a building flush with, and supporting, the upper part of a front or external wall. They are used principally above shop windows. A breastsummer is distinguished from a lintel by its bearing the whole superstructure of wall etc, instead of only a small portion over an opening. Hence the breastsummer over a shop-front carries the wall of the house above it.
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Breche violet is a very decorative type of marble quarried in the Carrara Mountains. Breche violet is of a basic creamy white, clouded colour with delicate tones of blue-grey, broken into irregular angular shapes by veins. The primary veins are blue-violet in colour, the secondary veins a variety of colours. The quarries were exhausted prior to 1960, and breche violet is no longer produced, but can still be found in older buildings.
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A breteche or bretesche is a sort of roofed wooden balcony or cage, crenelated and machicolated, attached by corbels, sometimes immediately over a gateway.
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Bricks are blocks of clay or other ceramic material, kneaded and then usually baked and used for the construction and decorative facing of buildings. Bricks may be dried in the sun but are more usually baked in a kiln. They cost relatively little, resist dampness and heat, and can supposedly last longer than stone - in tests however, modern bricks have a life span of only about forty years after which they start to decay. The colour of a brick varies according to the clay used and in proportions according to architectural tradition. The typical red or brownish colour found in British bricks is caused by the presence of iron oxide in the clay.
Brick was the chief building material of ancient Mesopotamia and Palestine, which had little wood or stone. The inhabitants of Jericho in Palestine were building with brick about 7000 BC. Sumerian and Babylonian builders constructed ziggurats, palaces, and city walls of sun-dried brick and covered them with more durable kiln-baked, often brilliantly glazed brick, arranged in decorative pictorial friezes.
Later the Persians and the Chinese built in brick (the Great Wall of China is built of brick). The Romans built such large structures as baths, amphitheatres, and aqueducts in brick, which they often covered with marble facing - ironically they built their houses from the far more resilient flint. During the Middle Ages, in the Byzantine Empire, in northern Italy, in the Low Countries, and in Germany, indeed wherever stone was scarce, builders valued brick for its decorative and structural qualities. They made handsome use of warm, red, unglazed brick laid in a variety of intricate patterns, such as checker, herringbone, basket weave, or Flemish bond. Such traditions continued during the Renaissance and in English Georgian architecture, and were taken to North America by the colonists although brick was already known to the American Indians of pre-Columbian civilizations. In dry regions they made houses of sun-dried adobe brick. The great pyramids of the Olmec, Maya, and other groups were made of brick faced with stone.
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In architecture, brick nogging is rough brickwork used to fill in the spaces between the uprights of a wooden partition.
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In architecture a brick trimmer is a brick arch under a hearth, usually within the thickness of a wooden floor, used to guard against accidents by fire.
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Bridewell was formerly a famous house of correction in Blackfriars, London, latterly the term has been used as a general term for houses of this kind. The building took its name from a well once existing between Fleet Street and the Thames, and dedicated to St Bride. Henry VIII built on this site, in 1522, a palace for the accommodation of the Emperor Charles V, which was afterwards converted by Edward VI into an hospital to serve as a workhouse for the poor and a house of correction for the idle and vicious.
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A bridge, a structure of stone, brick, wood, iron or other material, affording a passage over a stream, valley, or the like. The earliest bridges were probably the trunks of trees. The simplest form of bridge is known as a clapper-bridge and consists of planks or slabs of stone which rest on piles of stones.
The arch seems to have been unknown amongst most of the nations of antiquity. Even the Greeks had not sufficient acquaintance with it to apply it to bridge building. The Romans were the first to employ the principle of the arch in this direction, and after the construction of such a work as the great arched sewer at Rome, the Cloaca Maxima, a bridge over the Tiber would be of comparatively easy execution. One of the finest examples of the Roman bridge was the bridge built by Augustus over the Nera at Narni, the vestiges of which still remain.
It consisted of four arches, the longest of 43 meters span. The most celebrated bridges of ancient Rome were not generally, however, distinguished by the extraordinary size of their arches, nor by the lightness of their piers, but by their excellence and durability. The span of their arches seldom exceeded 20 or 25 meters, and they were mostly semicircular, or nearly so.
The Romans built bridges wherever their conquests extended, and in Britain there are still a number of bridges dating from Roman times. One of the most ancient post-Roman bridges in England is the Gothic triangular bridge at Croyland, in Lincolnshire, said to have been built in 860, having three archways meeting in a common centre at their apex, and three roadways. The longest old bridge in England was that over the Trent at Burton, in Staffordshire, built in the twelfth century, of squared freestone, and pulled down in the 19th century. It consisted of thirty-six arches, and was 47 meters long.
Old London Bridge was commenced in 1176, and finished in 1209. It had houses on each side like a regular street until 1756-58. In 1831 it was altogether removed, the new bridge, which had been begun in 1824, having then been finished.
The art of bridge-building made no progress after the destruction of the Roman empire until the eighteenth century, when the French architects began to introduce improvements, and the constructions of Perronet (Nogent-sur-Seine; Neuilly; Louis XVI bridge at Paris) are masterpieces. Some of the stone bridges built in later times far surpass those of older times in width of span.
Stone bridges consist of an arch or series of arches, and in building them the properties of the arch, the nature of the materials, and many other matters have to be carefully considered. It has been found that in the construction of an arch the slipping of the stones upon one another is prevented by their mutual pressure and the friction of their surfaces; the use of cement is thus subordinate to the principle of construction in contributing to the strength and maintenance of the fabric. The masonry or rock which receives the lateral thrust of an arch is called the abutment, the perpendicular supports are the piers. The width of an arch is its span; the greatest span in any stone bridge is about 75 meters. A one-span bridge has, of course, no piers.
In constructing a bridge across a deep stream it is desirable to have the smallest possible number of points of support. Piers in the waterway are not only expensive to form, but obstruct the navigation of the river, and by the very extent of resisting surface they expose the structure to shocks and the wearing action of the water. In building an arch, a timber framework was used called the centre, or centering. The centering had to keep the stones or voussoirs in position until they were keyed in, that is, all fixed in their places by the insertion of the key-stone.
The first iron bridges were erected from about 1777 to 1790. The same general principles apply to the construction of iron as of stone bridges, but the greater cohesion and adaptability of the material give more liberty to the architect, and much greater width of span is possible. At first iron bridges were erected in the form of arches, and the material employed was cast-iron; but the arch has been generally superseded by the beam or girder, with its numerous modifications; and wrought-iron or steel was likewise found to be much better adapted for resisting a great tensile strain than cast-metal.
Numerous modifications exist of the beam or girder, as the lattice-girder, bow-string-girder, etc; but of these none is more interesting than the tubular or hollow-girder, first rendered famous from its employment by Robert Stephenson in the construction of the railway bridge across the Menai Strait, and connecting Anglesey with the mainland of North Wales. This is known as the Britannia Tubular Bridge. The tubes are of a rectangular form, and constructed of riveted plates of wrought-iron, with rows of rectangular tubes or cells for the floor and roof respectively. The bridge consists of two of these enormous tubes or hollow beams laid side by side, one for the up and the other for the down traffic of the railway, and extending each to about a quarter of a mile in length.
Other tubular bridges of interest are the Conway Bridge, over the river Conway, an erection identical in principle with the Britannia Bridge, but on a smaller scale; the Brotherton Bridge over the river Aire; the tubular railway bridge across the Damietta branch of the Nile, which has this peculiarity, that the roadway is carried above instead of through the tubes. The Victoria Bridge over the St Lawrence at Montreal, originally tubular, is no longer so, the upper portion having been reconstructed with an open track. It is nearly two miles in length, or about five and a half times as long as the bridge across the Menai Strait. A girder railway bridge across the Firth of Tay at Dundee was opened in 1887, being the second built at the same place, after the first had given way in a great storm. It is 2 miles 73 yards long, has 85 spans, is 77 feet. high, and carries two lines of rails. The bridge over the Firth of Forth at Queensferry, was completed in 1889, and was the largest bridge built on the cantilever principle and was the first very notable example.
A cantilever is a structure the main feature of which is a projecting arm jutting out over the space to be spanned and supporting the roadway; and two cantilevers may be made to meet directly, or the space between may be bridged over by a girder connected with both. The cantilever principle has the advantage that it may be employed where there might be great difficulties in the way of a bridge otherwise constructed, since the projecting arm may be built out from either side of the river or other opening to be crossed, and at a great height if necessary. In some cases a bridge with an arch or arches of wrought iron or steel is preferred chiefly or solely because such a structure has a more handsome appearance than some other bridges.
American engineers have been very successful as builders of iron bridges, adopting various forms of girder, and constructing also some splendid bridges, with arches of great span, built up of wrought iron and steel.
Suspension-bridges, being entirely independent of central supports, do not interfere with the river, and may be erected where it is impracticable to build bridges of any other kind. The entire weight of a suspension-bridge rests upon the piers at either end, from which it is suspended, all the weight being below the points of support. Such bridges always swing a little, giving a vibratory movement which imparts a peculiar sensation to the passenger. The modes of constructing these bridges are various. The roadway is suspended either from chains or from wire-ropes, the ends of which require to be anchored, that is attached to the solid rock or masses of masonry or iron. One of the earlier of the great suspension-bridges is that constructed by Telford over the Menai Strait near the Britannia Tubular Bridge, finished in 1825. The cable-stayed bridge is a type of suspension bridge in which the supporting cables are connected directly to the bridge deck without the use of suspenders.
Though the oldest bridges on record were built of wood, like the Sublician Bridge at Rome, or that thrown by Caesar across the Rhine, it is only in certain places and for certain purposes that wood was much used after 1800. In the 19th century Germany was the school for wooden bridges. Perhaps the most celebrated of all wooden bridges was that which spanned the Rhine at Schaffhausen in Switzerland. This was 364 feet in length and 18 feet broad. It was designed and executed by Ulric Grttbenman, a village carpenter, in 1758, and was destroyed by the French in 1799. In the United States, where timber was still in common use in the 19th century, the Trenton Bridge over the Delaware, erected in 1804; the bridge over the Susquehanna, etc were examples of wooden bridges.
Trestle Bridges, or bridges the roadway of which is supported on wooden trestles or frames, formed of a series of beams and braces and often built up to a great height, were common in America until recently. Certain kinds of bridges are known as movable bridges. The bascule, balance, counterpoise or drawbridge - in which the roadway may be raised and lowered in one or two pieces, - is a common form; and there are also swing bridges (also known as pivot bridges) - opening horizontally to let shipping pass; bridges constructed so as to roll horizontally on wheels or otherwise; bridges in which the movable part, carrying the traffic, is suspended from a high iron framework or cables, under which shipping passes; these forming transporter bridges, as the bridge across the Mersey between Runcorn and Widnes, etc.
Pontoon or floating bridges are formed of pontoons or boats over which the roadway is laid, there being often the means of making an opening for shipping. A flying bridge is simply a kind of ferry. The Tower Bridge, London, crossing the Thames, is a unique structure, a combined suspension and bascule bridge, opening in the centre to admit ships, and originally having an elevated footway for passengers, with lifts and stairs in two towers.
The Bailey bridge is a temporary bridge made of prefabricated steel parts that can be rapidly assembled. It is named after its inventor, the Englishman Sir Donald Bailey who designed the Bailey bridge during the early-mid 20th century.
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In architecture, a bridgeboard is a notched board to which the treads and risers of the steps of wooden stairs are fastened.
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In architecture, bridging is the system of bracing used between floor or other timbers to distribute the weight.
In decorating, bridging refers to a continuous film of paint that is not in complete contact with the surface to which it is applied, soon leading to a lifting and cracking of the dried film.
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In scaffolding, a bridle is a horizontal scaffold tube secured between two putlogs to give support to intermediate transoms across window openings.
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In architecture a bridle iron is a strong flat bar of iron, so bent as to provide support, as in a stirrup, one end of a floor timber, etc., where no sufficient bearing can be had.
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In architecture, brise-soleil refers to a slattered or louvered sun-screen comprised of horizontal and vertical compartmental screens often found incorporated into the facades of buildings in sunny countries notably Brazil and Egypt, so as to keep the glare of the sun out, while still admitting light and air and allowing a view from the window. The brise-soleil was first used in architecture in a design for a block of offices to be built in Algiers in 1933 by le Corbusier. In 1937 Le Corbusier was consultant to the Brazilian architects who incorporated the brise-soleil device into the offices of the Ministry of Education in Rio de Janeiro.
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In architecture, a broach or broche is a spire rising directly from a tower, there being no intermediate parapet. The terms broach and broche were originally old English terms for a church spire, the specific definition originated in Leicestershire and spread into general use during the 19th century.
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Browning is a smooth coat of brown mortar, usually the second coat, used as the preparation for the finishing coat of plaster.
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In architecture, a bull's-nose is the name given to an external angle when obtuse or rounded.
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In architecture, a bundle pillar is a column or pier, with others of small dimensions attached to it.
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In architecture, a butment is a buttress of an arch; the supporter, or that part which joins it to the upright pier. The term is also applied to the mass of stone or solid work at the end of a bridge, by which the extreme arches are sustained, or by which the end of a bridge without arches is supported.
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In paperhanging, the term butt joint refers to paper hung with the edges lying side-by-side, rather than overlapping.
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In scaffolding, a butting tube is a very short piece of tube used in tubular scaffolding to make it possible for a diagonal brace to be fastened to a standard with right-angled couplers instead of with swivel couplers, thereby giving extra strength to the structure.
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In architecture, a buttress is a projecting mass of masonry, used for resisting the outward thrust of an arch, to strengthen and support a wall, or for ornament and symmetry.
Buttresses properly so called are not used in classical architecture, as the projections are formed into pilasters, antae, or some other feature in the general arrangement, so as to disguise or destroy the appearance of strength and support. Norman buttresses, especially in the earlier part of the style, are generally of considerable breadth and very small projection and add so little to the substance of the wall that it is generally supposed that they were used as much for ornamentation as for support.
Norman buttresses are commonly not divided into stages, but continue of the same breadth and thickness from the ground to the top, and either die into the wall with a slope immediately below the parapet, or are continued up to the parapet, which often overhangs the perpendicular face of the wall as much as the buttress project in order to receive them, as at the nave of Southwell Minster.
Occasionally small shafts are worked on the angles of Norman buttresses, but these generally indicate that the work is late. Early English buttresses have, usually, considerably less breadth and much greater projection than the Norman, and often stand out very boldly. They are sometimes continued throughout their whole height without any diminution; but are oftener broken into stages with a successive reduction in their projection, and not infrequently in their width also, in each; the sets off dividing the stages are generally sloped at a very acute angle: the buttresses terminate at the top either with a plain slope dying into the wall, or with a triangular head (or pediment) which sometimes stands against the parapet, sometimes below it, and sometimes rises above it, producing something of the effect of a pinnacle, as at Salisbury.
The buttresses at the angles of buildings in the Early English style usually consist either of a pair, one standing on each side of the angle, or of one large square buttress entirely covering the angle, and this is sometimes surmounted by a pinnacle, as at the east end of Battle church, Sussex; pinnacles on buttresses of other kinds in this style are very rare, and are indications that the work is late. The angles of Early English buttresses are very commonly chamfered off, and are occasionally moulded: with this style flying buttresses seem first to have been used, but they did not become common until a subsequent period.
In the Decorated style the buttresses are almost invariably worked in stages, and are very often ornamented, frequently with niches, with crocketed canopies, and other carved decorations; and they very commonly, in large buildings, terminate in pinnacles, which are sometimes of open work, forming niches or canopies for statues. With the introduction of this style the angle buttresses began to be set diagonally, as at the beautiful chapel on the south side of the church of St Mary Magdalene, Oxford.
In the Perpendicular style, the buttresses differ little in general form and arrangement from the Decorated but the ornaments of the buttresses in each of the styles partook of the prevailing character of the architecture, and varied with it; thus in the later specimens of the 15th century they are more frequently panelled than at any previous period, as at St. Lawrence church, Evesham, and the Divinity School, Oxford.
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Byzantine is a style of architecture developed in the Byzantine empire. Based on the Grecian, style. its leading forms are the round arch, the dome, the pillar, the circle, and the cross. The capitals of the pillars are of endless variety, and full of invention. The arches were generally semicircular, sometimes segmental, or of the horseshoe form. The mosque of St. Sophia, Constantinople, and the church of St. Mark, Venice, are prominent examples of Byzantine architecture.
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