Glossary of Architectural and Building Terminology - W

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Wagon Ceiling - A wagon ceiling is a semicircular, or wagon-headed, arch or ceiling. The term sometimes describes a ceiling whose section is polygonal instead of semicircular.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Wainscot - Wainscot is a wooden lining or boarding of the walls of apartments, usually made in panels.
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Wall Plate - A wall plate is a piece of timber placed horizontally upon a wall used for supporting posts, joists, and the like.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Wash - The wash is the upper surface of a member or material when given a slope to shed water. Hence, the term is applied to a structure or receptacle shaped so as to receive and carry off water, as a carriage wash in a stable.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Washboard - A washboard (baseboard, mopboard or scrubboard) is a board, or other woodwork, carried round the walls of a room and touching the floor, to form a base and protect the plastering.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Watch Box - A watch box is a building used to house a guard to guard a cemetery. Watch boxes were built in Britain during the 18th century to guard cemeteries from body-snatchers.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Water Joint - A water joint is a joint in a stone pavement where the stones are left slightly higher than elsewhere, the rest of the surface being sunken or dished. The raised surface is intended to prevent the settling of water in the joints.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Water Table - A water table is a moulding, or other projection, in the wall of a building intended to throw off the water.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Water Wing - A water wing is one of the two walls built on either side of the junction of a bridge with the bank of a river, to protect the abutment of the bridge and the bank from the action of the current.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Wattle And Daub - Wattle and daub is an ancient method of constructing walls. Flexible wooden rods, often hazel, of about one meter length and one centimetre diameter, are woven together and onto this framework a mixture of clay, chopped straw and animal dung (daub) is firmly pressed in.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

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Weather Moulding - A weather moulding is a canopy or cornice over a door or a window, intended to throw off the rain.
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Weather Strip - A weather strip is a strip of wood, rubber, or other material, applied to an outer door or window so as to cover the joint made by it with the sill, casings, or threshold, in order to exclude rain, snow, cold air, etc.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Weatherboard - A weatherboard is a board extending from the ridge to the eaves along the slope of the gable, and forming a close junction between the shingling of a roof and the side of the building beneath. The name is also given to a clapboard or feather-edged board used in weatherboarding.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Weatherboarding - Weatherboarding is a covering or siding of a building, formed of boards lapping over one another, to exclude rain, snow, etc.
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Weathered - The term weathered describes something made sloping, so as to throw off water. For example a weathered cornice or window sill.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Well - A well is an opening through the floors of a building, used for a staircase or an elevator.
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Well Staircase - A well staircase is a staircase having a wellhole as distinguished from one which occupies the whole of the space left for it in the floor.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Wellhole - A wellhole is an open space in a floor, to accommodate a staircase. The name is also given to the open space left beyond the ends of the steps of a staircase.
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Wheel Window - A wheel window is a circular window having radiating mullions arranged like the spokes of a wheel.
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Whitewash - Whitewash is a term used in decorating to describe any cheap form of distemper based on whiting loosely bound with glue, glue size, casein or a similar binder
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Whiting - Whiting is a material prepared by grinding and pulverising natural chalk. Whiting loses its opacity when mixed with water, but regains it when the water evaporates. Whiting is unaffected by the alkaline properties of new plaster and is used in the preparation of distempers. Whiting mixed with raw linseed oil forms putty.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Winder - A winder is one in a flight of steps which are curved in plan, so that each tread is broader at one end than at the other as distinguished from a flyer.
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Window Back - The window back is the inside face of the low, and usually thin, piece of wall between the window sill and the floor below.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Window Sill - A window sill is a flat piece of wood, stone, or the like, at the bottom of a window frame.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Window Stool - The window stool is the flat piece upon which a sash window shuts down, and which corresponds to the sill of a door.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.

Wing - A wing is a side building, less than the main edifice; as, one of the wings of a palace.
©2007 The Probert Encyclopaedia. Data used under license.