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A garret is a habitable
Denton bow garret becomes listed building
, Manchester Evening News.
Old maid in the garret
(song) {{room Military terminology Rooms fr:Chambre de bonne
A garret is a habitable attic
An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...
, a living space at the top of a house or larger residential building, traditionally, small, dismal, and cramped, with sloping ceilings. In the days before elevators this was the least prestigious position in a building, at the very top of the stairs.
Etymology
The word entered Middle English through Old French with a military connotation of watchtower,garrison
A garrison (from the French ''garnison'', itself from the verb ''garnir'', "to equip") is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a mil ...
or billet a place for guards or soldiers to be quartered in a house. Like garrison, it comes from an Old French word of ultimately Germanic origin meaning "to provide" or "defend".
History
In the later 1800s, garrets became one of the defining features of Second Empire architecture in Paris, France, where large buildings were stratified socially between different floors. As the number of stairs to climb increased, the social status decreased. Garrets were often internal elements of themansard roof
A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...
, with skylights or dormer
A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window.
Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...
windows.
A "bow garret" is a two-story "outhouse" situated at the back of a typical terraced house often used in Lancashire for the hat industry in pre-mechanised days. "Bowing" was the name given to the technique of cleaning up animal (e.g. rabbit) fur in the early stages of preparation for turning it into hats. What is now believed to be the last bow garret in existence (in Denton, Greater Manchester) is now a listed building in order to preserve this historical relic., Manchester Evening News.
References
External links
*Old maid in the garret
(song) {{room Military terminology Rooms fr:Chambre de bonne