This glossary was compiled by Ted Monk and has been imported from his site which can be found at
http://fox.nstn.ca:80/~tmonk/castle/. This site looks extensively at castles around the world and I urge you to visit.
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.)
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.
Burg - German stronghold.
Burh - Saxon stronghold; literally a "neighborhood".
Buttery - Next to the kitchen, a room from where wine was dispensed.
Buttress - Wall projection for extra support; flying - narrow, arched bridge against the structure; pilaster - gradually recedes into the structure as it ascends.
Capital - Distinctly treated upper end of a column.
Carotid - Heart-shaped.
Casemates - Artillery emplacements in separate protected rooms, rather than in a battery.
Cesspit - The opening in a wall in which the waste from one or more garderobes was collected.
Chamfer - Surface made by smoothing off the angle between two stone faces.
Chancel - The space surrounding the altar of a church.
Chemise wall - Formed by a series of interlinked or overlapping semicircular bastions.
Chevron - Zig-zag moulding.
Choir - The part of a cruciform church east of the crossing.
Clasping - Encasing the angle.
Clunch - Hard chalky material.
Cob - Unburned clay mixed with straw.
Column - Pillar (circular section).
Concentric - Having two sets of walls, one inside the other.
Coping - Covering stones.
Corbel - A projecting block of stone built into a wall during construction; step-wise construction, as in an arch, roof, etc.
Corinthian - Elaborately foliated capital.
Cornice - Decorative projection along the top of a wall.
Counterguard - A long, near-triangular freestanding fortification within the moat.
Counterscarp - Outer slope of ditch.
Course - Level layer of stones or bricks.
Crannog - Celtic Scotland timber-built fortified lake village.
Creasing - ώ-shaped mark on a wall, marking the pitch of a former roof.
Crenel - The low segment of the alternating high and low segments of a battlement.
Crenelation - Battlements at the top of a tower or wall.
Crocket - Curling leaf-shape.
Cross-and-orb - Modified cross slits to accommodate gunnery.
Crosswall - Interior dividing wall; structural.
Crownwork - Freestanding bastioned fortification in front of main defenses.
Cupola - Hemispherical armored roof.
Curtain Wall - A connecting wall hung between two towers surrounding the bailey.
Cushion - Capital cut from a block by rounding off the lower corners.
Cusp - Curves meeting in a point.
Cyclopean - Drystone masonry, ancient, of huge blocks.
Daub - A mud of clay mixture applied over wattle to strengthen and seal it.
Dead-ground - Close to the wall, where the defenders can't shoot.
Diaper work - Decoration of squares or lozenges.
Diaphragm - Wall running up to the roof-ridge.
Dog-legged - With right-angle bends.
Dogtooth - Diagonal indented pyramid.
Donjon - A great tower or keep.
Dormer - Window placed vertically in sloping roof.
Double-splayed - Embrasure whose smallest aperture is in the middle of the wall.
Drawbridge - A heavy timber platform built to span a moat between a gatehouse and surrounding land that could be raised when required to block an entrance.
Dressing - Carved stonework around openings.
Drum Tower - A large, circular, low, squat tower built into a wall.
Drystone - Unmortared masonry.
Dungeon - The jail, usually found in one of the towers.
Embattled - Battlemented; crenelated.
Embrasure - The low segment of the altering high and low segments of a battlement.
Enceinte - The enclosure or fortified area of a castle.
Fascine - Huge bundle of brushwood for revetting ramparts or filling in ditches.
Fillet - Narrow flat band.
Finial - A slender piece of stone used to decorate the tops of the merlons, spire, tower, balustrade, etc.
Fluting - Concave mouldings in parallel.
Foliated - Carved with leaves.
Footings - Bottom part of wall.
Forebuilding - An extension to the keep, guarding it's entrance.
Fosse - Ditch.
Freestone - High quality sand- or lime-stone.
Fresco - Painting on wet plaster wall.
Gable - Wall covering end of roof ridge.
Gallery - Long passage or room.
Garderobe - A small latrine or toilet either built into the thickness of the wall or projected out from it; ; projects from the wall as a small, rectangular bartizan
Gate House - The complex of towers, bridges, and barriers built to protect each entrance through a castle or town wall.
