Glossary of Castle Terms

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 - pointed with double curved sides, upper arcs lower concave; lancet - pointed formed on an acute-angle triangle; depressed - flattened or elliptical; corbelled - triangular, peaked, each stone set a little further in until they meet, with a large capstone.

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.

Barbican - The gateway or outworks defending the drawbridge.

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

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 - narrow, arched bridge against the structure; pilaster - gradually recedes into the structure as it ascends.

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.

Glacis - A bank sloping down from a castle which acts as a defence against invaders; broad, sloping naked rock or earth on which the attackers are completely exposed

Great chamber - Lord's solar, or bed-sitting room.

Great Hall - The building in the inner ward that housed the main meeting and dining area for the castle's residence; throne room

Groined - Roof with sharp edges at intersection of cross-vaults.

Half-shaft - Roll-moulding on either side of opening.

Half-timber - The common form of medieval construction in which walls were made of a wood frame structure filled with wattle and daub.

Hall - Principal room or building in complex.

Herringbone - Brick or stone laid in alternate diagonal courses.

Hillfort - Bronze or iron age earthwork defenses of concentric ditches and banks.

Hoarding - Upper wooden stories on a stone castle wall; the living area; sometimes, a temporary wooden balcony suspended from the tops of walls from which missiles could be dropped.

Hood - Arched covering; when used as umbrella, called hood-mould.