Designing Your Character & Other Handy Things

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.