Belvedere roof appendage in Galveston Texas

A widow's walk, also known as a widow's watch or roofwalk, is a railed

roof A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of t ...

top platform often having an inner

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, f ...

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * M ...

frequently found on 19th-century North American coastal houses. The name is said to come from the

wives A wife ( : wives) is a female in a marital relationship. A woman who has separated from her partner continues to be a wife until the marriage is legally dissolved with a divorce judgement. On the death of her partner, a wife is referred to as ...

of mariners, who would watch for their spouses' return, often in vain as the ocean took their lives, leaving the women widows. In other coastal communities, the platforms were called captain's walks, as they topped the homes of the more successful captains; supposedly, ship owners and captains would use them to search the horizon for ships due in port. However, there is little or no evidence that widow's walks were intended or regularly used to observe shipping. Widow's walks are in fact a standard decorative feature of Italianate architecture, which was very popular during the height of the

Age of Sail The Age of Sail is a period that lasted at the latest from the mid-16th (or mid- 15th) to the mid-19th centuries, in which the dominance of sailing ships in global trade and warfare culminated, particularly marked by the introduction of nava ...

in many North American coastal communities. The widow's walk is a variation of the Italianate

. The Italianate cupola, its larger instance being an archetypal

belvedere Belvedere (from Italian, meaning "beautiful sight") may refer to: Places Australia *Belvedere, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region Africa * Belvedere (Casablanca), a neighborhood in Casablanca, Morocco * Belvedere, Harare, Z ...

, was an important ornate finish to this style, although it was often high maintenance and prone to leaks. Beyond their use as viewing platforms, they are frequently built around the

chimney A chimney is an architectural ventilation structure made of masonry, clay or metal that isolates hot toxic exhaust gases or smoke produced by a boiler, stove, furnace, incinerator, or fireplace from human living areas. Chimneys are typ ...

of the residence, thus creating access to the structure. This allows the residents of the home to pour

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural class ...

down burning chimneys in the event of a chimney fire in the hope of preventing the house from burning down.John Ciardi,
Widow's Walk: Sailor's Friend, or Fire Station?
National Public Radio, October 9, 1984. Image:Widows Walk Gaithersburg.jpg, alt=The roof of a house with a widow's walk on top, consisting of a small room surrounded by railing, A widow's walk in Gaithersburg, Maryland. File:Widow's Walk.jpg, A widow's walk on a home overlooking Marblehead Harbor in

Marblehead, Massachusetts Marblehead is a coastal New England town in Essex County, Massachusetts, along the North Shore. Its population was 20,441 at the 2020 census. The town lies on a small peninsula that extends into the northern part of Massachusetts Bay. Attache ...

. File:Widowhouse.jpg, A "widow's watch" on a home in

Saint John, New Brunswick Saint John is a seaport city of the Atlantic Ocean located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Saint John is the oldest incorporated city in Canada, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign of ...

, Canada. Unlike examples in warmer climates, this one is enclosed.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Widow's Walk Roofs Architectural elements Observation decks Widowhood

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