GLOSSARY:
BUILDINGS TERMINOLOGY,
MATERIALS & CONSTRUCTION
Openings, fittings and features
ANGLE: internal or external meeting of two or more surfaces.
ARCH: a structure over an opening, formed by a whalebone or wedge-shaped
blocks of brick or stone held together by mutual pressure and supported at the sides;
a curving, usually load bearing structure spanning an opening.
AUMBRY: a constructed recess, specifically a wall cupboard.
BAR-HOLE: horizontal slot for timber bar used as a door-bolt.
BAY: division of an interior space or elevation defined by vertical features
CEILING: overhead interior surface or lining of a room, often concealing the
underside of a floor or roof.
CHIMNEY: the flue or channel that funnels smoke and gases from a fire; a hollow
vertical structure through which fire smoke and gases are carried to the outside of a
building, usually exiting through the roof or gable wall. (see also LUM; HANGING
LUM).
DOOR: a hinged wooden barrier for opening or closing an entrance to a (usually)
roofed building.
Doorway: opening or entrance in a building.
DRAIN: an artificial channel for draining liquids. A sometimes stone lined and
capped gully used for drainage of water or effluent from buildings or yards (e.g. byre
drain) or an open channel for conveying surface water.
EAVE: overhanging lower edge of roof.
FIREPLACE: a internal opening in a chimney to hold a fire (see also HEARTH).
HEARTH: a slab, structure or place on which fires are made, the floor or base of a
fireplace – may be within a chimney or set within the floor space of a room.
LUM: see also CHIMNEY.
HANGING LUM: a canopy above an open fire either suspended from the roof or
against a gable allowing smoke to rise and exit through a hole in the roof space. Also
used for ‘hanging’ and smoking meats and fish.
MARGIN: stones set around the edges of an opening, window doorway etc.
OPENING: a breach or aperture, not necessarily a window or doorway.
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GLOSSARY:
BUILDINGS TERMINOLOGY,
MATERIALS & CONSTRUCTION
OPPOSED ENTRANCE: doorway openings within a building directly opposite each
other.
PRESS: a cupboard or recess.
RECESS: indentation or alcove along wall space.
SKEWPUTT: a block of stone set at the top of a brick or stone wall to finish the
eaves of a parapet or coping; sloping or shaped stones finishing a gable, upstanding
above the roof surface.
SPLAY: slanting side of opening.
WINDOW: an opening in a wall of a building for admitting light and air, but not
access.
WINDOW FRAME: usually of wood containing panes of glass.
Building Materials & Construction
ASHLAR: squared building stone finely dressed on all faces adjacent to those of
other stones to permit fine jointing.
BATTER: inward inclination of a wall face or bank.
BOULDER: large natural rock used as building block or otherwise incorporated into
masonry of a building.
BRICK: a rectangular block of dried or fired clay.
BROACHED: decorative, parallel horizontal or diagonal tooling on even faces and
square edges of masonry blocks (also droved) produced by a broach chisel.
CLAY: natural material, plastic when moist, either alone or mixed with other material
i.e. lime can be used as a binding material for masonry.
COBBLE: a naturally rounded stone, of a size usually capable of being easily lifted
single-handedly, used for paving, walls and foundations.
COLLAPSE: displaced stones; the result of a structure falling down, inward or
outward, due to loss of supports.
COMPARTMENT: one of the parts or spaces into which an area is subdivided i.e. as
separate room.
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GLOSSARY:
BUILDINGS TERMINOLOGY,
MATERIALS & CONSTRUCTION
CONCRETE: concrete is a compound material made from sand, gravel and Portland
cement. It has been used widely as a building material since its re-invention in
Britain in 1824.
COPING: finishing course on an exterior wall.
COURSE: a continuous, usually horizontal distribution of stone in a section of wall or
i.e. tiles in a roof.
CORE: Material, stone or earth, used to infill the area between inner and outer
facing stones in a wall.
CRUCK: literally ‘crook’ – a naturally curved or a series of composite timbers
combining the roles of an upright post and rafter used in pairs to support the roof of
a building, especially in the absence of a supporting wall.
CRUCK-FRAMED: a building in which pairs of curved timbers form a bowed Aframe to support the roof independently of the walls.
CRUCK-PAD: a floor or mid- wall setting for a cruck base.
CRUCK-SLOT: a recess or space within a wall to accommodate a cruck.
DRESSES (STONE): stone that has been worked to desired shape, the faces to be
exposed being smooth.
DROVED: see BROACHED.
DRYSTONE (or DRYSTANE): stone construction without mortar.
DYKE: a drystone or low turf wall forming a linear barrier wall, dividing or enclosing
lands; also see WALL.
EARTH: turf, soil and clay as a building material.
FACING: the surface presented to view; the front i.e. facing stone.
FLAGSTONE: strictly a type of sandstone but generally any flat stone used for
paving slabs, but also for making fences or roofing.
FOOTINGS: a foundation or lower courses for a wall that may be wider than the
wall line above the surrounding ground level.
GABLE: a gable is the generally triangular headed end wall supporting a sloping
roof. The shape of the gable will depend on the structural system being used (which
is often related to the availability of materials).
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GLOSSARY:
BUILDINGS TERMINOLOGY,
MATERIALS & CONSTRUCTION
HARL: harling or roughcasting is a process of covering stonework, using a plastering
process involding a slurry of small pebbles or fine chips of stone.
LATH: a thin narrow strip of wood combined with others to form a latticework as a
backing for plaster or to support slates, tiles or other roofing material.
LIME: a white caustic substance obtained by heating forms of calcium carbonate,
limestone or shells in a kiln to produce quicklime.
LIMEWASH: limewash is basically quicklime suspended in water, and is the
traditional protective coating for lime plaster. Traditionally, walls were limewashed
annually.
MORTAR: material used in masonry to fill the gaps between blocks in construction.
LIME MORTAR: used prior to mid -19th century in Britain.
PARTITION: a feature i.e. wall dividing part of a building or room into separate
areas.
PLASTER: a composite, usually interior, wall coating providing a smooth surface.
POINTING: exposed mortared joints of masonry.
POSTPAD: flat stone on which the end of a cruck or other timber is set to prevent
direct contact with the ground.
QUOIN: exterior corner or single stone of such an angle.
ROOF: the upper covering of a building including the frame for supporting the
roofing materials. Roofs are broken into two basic shape families: gabled and hipped.
RUBBLE: undressed masonry where the stone is in a rough state.
COURSED RUBBLE: coursed stone with rough faces.
RANDOM RUBBLE: random, un-coursed stone.
SNECKED RUBBLE: coursing composed intermittently of large stones interspersed
with smaller, often flat or angular stones as fillers.
STOREY: the level of a building above (or below) the ground. The height of each
storey is based on the ceiling height of the rooms and the thickness of the floors
between each.
STUGGED: dressed masonry produced by a narrow chisel or punch to produce
dense pocked and oblique markings.
TURF: a piece cut from a layer of earth, especially when covered with grass used for
building walls or as a roofing material.
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GLOSSARY:
BUILDINGS TERMINOLOGY,
MATERIALS & CONSTRUCTION
VAULT: a stone ceiling formed of arches.
WALL: usually a solid structure most commonly delineates a building and rooms
within it or may define a space in the open air e.g. a field wall or dyke. There are
three principal types of structural walls: building walls, exterior boundary walls, and
retaining walls.
WALL HEAD: the constructed upper extent of a wall on which the roof rests.
Roofing Materials and Construction
A – FRAME: common roof construction comprising Joists, Rafters and Collar beam
to form Couples. These may be linked by Purlins and a Ridge-piece to form the roof
space.
BATTEN: horizontal wooden strip onto which roofing tiles or slates are hung.
CORRUGATED IRON: corrugated iron was invented and patented in Britain as
early as the 1820s and was first mass-produced cladding material of the modern era.
By 1850 it was being used with iron and timber frames for prefabricated buildings
manufactured here and exported all over the world.
COUPLE: a pair of rafters or crucks forming an apex to support a ridged roof.
GABLED ROOF: a gabled roof has a slope falling from ridge to eave, creating a
peak or triangle on the side or front face.
HIP: a hip roof is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls,
usually with a fairly gentle slope and having no gables or other vertical sides to the
roof.
SARKING: sarking is the use of wood panels under the shingles of a roof, to provide
support; common term in Scotland (Scots ‘shirt’). Slates are nailed directly to the
sarking boards without timber battens.
SLATE: a fine-grained metamorphic rock having good cleavage along parallel planes
and used principally as a roofing material. Although locally available sources were
exploited the major Scottish sources were on Easdale and at Balachulish ; Lake
District and Welsh slate was imported into the Central Belt in quantity from the mid
18th century.
TILE: a slab that can be decorated, shaped, hollow etc. Used for a variety of
purposes in construction. Usually refers to a manufactured ceramic generally used
for covering roofs, floors, and walls.
PANTILES: a roofing tile of curved s-shaped section are commonly found in an
Improvement farm context. Originating in Holland home manufacture began in the
mid 18th century. Their distribution is exclusive to buildings in the eastern counties.
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GLOSSARY:
BUILDINGS TERMINOLOGY,
MATERIALS & CONSTRUCTION
THATCH: a roof covering comprising straw, reeds heather or fern tied down with
rope or plaited straw. Thatch was the predominant method of roofing buildings in
Scotland until the mid 18th century.
WALL PLATE: a horizontal timber along the top of a wall at eaves level to support
and distribute the load from joists and rafters.
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