Looking at Buildings

Glossary

Shell: Thin, self-supporting roofing membrane of timber or concrete.
Sheugh: (Scots): A trench or open drain; a street gutter.
Shingles: Thin pieces of wood like overlapping tiles, used externally.
Shouldered arch: An arch with arcs in each corner and a flat centre or lintel.
Shouldered architrave: The moulded frame of a door or window with horizontal and vertical projections at the top angles.
Shuttering: Temporary framing of timber or metal used for casting concrete; also called formwork.
Side purlins: Pairs of longitudinal timbers placed some way up the slope of the roof, which carry common rafters.
Sill: Horizontal member at the bottom of a window or door frame; sometimes spelt cill. Also the horizontal member at the base of a timber-framed wall, into which the posts and studs are tenoned.
Single-framed: Of a roof: without purlins or other longitudinal members above the springing of the rafters. Compare double-framed.
Skew: (Scots): Sloping or shaped stones finishing a gable upstanding from the roof. A skewputt is a bracket at the bottom end of a skew.