Looking at Buildings

Glossary

Timber framing: Method of construction in which the structural frame is built of interlocking timbers. In close studding the uprights (studs) are set close together, in square panel construction the main uprights (posts) and horizontals (rails) form large square or near-square compartments. The spaces are filled with non-structural material, e.g. infill of wattle and daub, lath and plaster, brickwork (known as nogging), etc. and may be covered by plaster, weatherboarding (overlapping horizontal boards), or tiles.
Tolbooth: (Scots; lit. tax booth): Tax office containing burgh council chamber and prison.
Tolsey: An exchange or market house; the Irish term is tholsel.
Tomb-chest: Chest-shaped tomb, usually of stone.
Tondo: A circular painting or relief.
Torus (plural: tori): Large convex moulding usually used on a classical column base.
Touch: Soft black marble quarried near Tournai in Belgium.
Tourelle: Turret corbelled out from the wall.
Tower arch: Arch joining a church tower to the nave.
Tower block: A generic term for any very high multi-storey building.