Looking at Buildings

Glossary

Counterscarp bank: Low bank on the downhill or outer side of a hillfort ditch.
Coupled rafters: Regularly spaced uniform rafters (inclined lateral timbers supporting the roof covering) placed along the length of a roof or between principal rafters; also called common rafters.
Cour d’honneur: (French): Formal entrance court before a house, usually with flanking wings and a screen wall or gates.
Course: Continuous layer of stones, bricks etc. in a wall.
Cove: A broad concave moulding, e.g. to mask the eaves of a roof. Coved ceiling: with a pronounced cove joining the walls to a flat central panel smaller than the whole area of the ceiling.
Cradle roof: A timber roof with close-set braces of polygonal or curved profile, often ceiled between the timbers; also called a wagon roof.
Credence: In churches, a shelf within or beside a piscina, or a table for the sacramental elements and vessels.
Crenellation: A defensive feature on a parapet, so called from the crenels or regular openings in it; the whole forming battlements.
Crinkle-crankle wall: Garden wall undulating in a series of serpentine curves.
Crockets: In Gothic architecture, leafy hooks or knobs, as on a crocket capital. Crocketing (rows of crockets) decorates the edges of pinnacles, canopies, etc.