Trail:

Glossary

Regency
London E3
Used generally for the late Georgian architecture of c. 1800-30, which favoured thinner or more summary classical detail than the 18th-century norm. (Vogue Regency refers to its revival as a fashionable style of the 1920s-50s.)
Reinforced
Of concrete: incorporating steel rods to take the tensile force.
Relieving arch
An arch incorporated in a wall to relieve superimposed weight. Also called a discharging arch.
Renaissance
Northamptonshire
The revival of classical architecture that began in 15th-century Italy and spread through Western Europe and the Americas in the following two centuries, finding distinctive forms and interpretations in different states and regions. From c. 1830 the Italian version was revived in Britain as a style in its own right (sometimes called Neo-Renaissance or Italianate), i.e. as distinguished from the native Georgian classical tradition.
Rendering
The covering of outside walls with a uniform surface or skin for protection from the weather. Cement rendering: a cheaper substitute for stucco (fine lime plaster), usually with a grainy texture.
Repouss
Relief designs in metalwork, formed by beating it from the back.
Rere-arch
Archway in medieval architecture formed across the wide inner opening of a window.
Reredorter
(lit. behind the dormitory): Latrines in a monastery or abbey, usually placed east of the cloister.
Reredos
Painted and/or sculpted screen behind and above an altar.
Respond
Half-pier or half-column bonded into a wall and carrying one end of an arch. It usually terminates an arcade. A pilaster respond is set at the end of a colonnade, arcade etc. to balance visually the column which it faces.