Looking at Buildings

Glossary

Saxo-Norman: Transitional Romanesque style combining Anglo-Saxon and Norman features, current c. 1060-1100.
Scagliola: Polished composition covering giving the effect of (usually coloured) marble, used especially on columns from the mid-18th to early 19th century.
Scale-and-platt stair: (Scots; lit. stair and landing): with parallel flights rising alternately in opposite directions, without an open well.
Scalloped capital: A form of block capital in which the convex lower faces are carved with broad flutings or half-cones.
Scarcement: Extra thickness of the lower part of a wall, e.g. to carry a floor.
Scarp: Artificial cutting away of the ground to form a steep slope.
Scissor-braces: In a timber roof, paired braces crossing diagonally between pairs of rafters or principals.
Scissor truss: A roof truss framed at the bottom by crossed intersecting beams like open scissors.
Scotia: A hollow classical moulding, especially on a column base.
Scottish or Scotch Baronial: Orkney
Scotland
A Victorian style based on the fortified and semi-fortified Scottish houses of the 16th and 17th centuries. The distinguishing features are vertical rather than horizontal proportions, small windows, steep roofs, small turrets or tourelles, and a sparing use of Renaissance ornament.