|
Old Town Hall, Great Dunmow
The Old Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Place, Great Dunmow, Essex, England. The structure, which is now in retail use, is a Grade II listed building. History The town hall was commissioned as a guildhall following the incorporation of the borough in 1555. It was designed in the Elizabethan style, built using timber-framing with plaster infill, and was completed in around 1578. Internally, the principal room was the assembly room on the first floor. The first floor was re-built in 1854-55, more than doubling the height of the assembly room (to which a gallery, 'capable of accommodating nearly 100 persons', was added on the north side). The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of two bays facing onto the Market Place. The left hand bay, which was narrow and recessed, contained a doorway with a rectangular fanlight on the ground floor, and a small bi-partite window on the first floor. The right hand bay was fenestrated by a timber framed window on the gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Dunmow
Great Dunmow is a historic market town and civil parish in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It lies to the north of the A120 road, approximately midway between Bishop's Stortford and Braintree, Essex, Braintree, east of London Stansted Airport. Originally the site of a Roman Britain, Roman settlement on Stane Street (Colchester), Stane Street, the town thrived during the Middle Ages. Dunmow means "Meadow on the Hill". The settlement was variously referred to as Dunmow Magna, Much Dunmow, or most commonly Great Dunmow. History A Roman small town developed on the junction between Stane Street (Colchester), Stane Street and the Roman roads in Britannia, Roman roads which ran northeast to southwest from Sudbury, Suffolk, Sudbury to London, and northwest to southeast from Cambridge to Chelmsford. The main settlement area spread westwards from the road junction, with cemeteries on the outskirts. There was a second Roman settlement at Church End immediately to the north of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bargeboard
A bargeboard or rake fascia is a board fastened to each projecting gable of a roof to give it strength and protection, and to conceal the otherwise exposed end grain of the horizontal timbers or purlins of the roof. The word ''bargeboard'' is probably from the Medieval Latin ''bargus'', or ''barcus'', a scaffold, and not from the now obsolete synonym ''vergeboard''. History Historically, bargeboards are sometimes moulded only or carved, but as a rule the lower edges were cusped and had tracery in the spandrels besides being otherwise elaborated. An example in Britain was one at Ockwells in Berkshire (built 1446–1465), which was moulded and carved as if it were intended for internal work. Modern residential rake fascias are typically made of 2-by dimensional lumber, with trim added for decoration and/or weatherproofing later. See also * Antefix * Cornice * Eaves * Fascia * Karamon – use in Japanese architecture * Peak_ornament * Soffit A soffit is an exterior a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Municipal Corporations Act 1883
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the governing body of a given municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district. The English word is derived from French , which in turn derives from the Latin , based on the word for social contract (), referring originally to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state (granting Roman citizenship to the inhabitants) while permitting the communities to retain their own local governments (a limited autonomy). A municipality can be any political jurisdiction, from a sovereign state such as the Principality of Monaco, to a small village such as West Hampton Dunes, New York. The territory over which a municip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Masonic Lodge
A Masonic lodge (also called Freemasons' lodge, or private lodge or constituent lodge) is the basic organisational unit of Freemasonry. It is also a commonly used term for a building where Freemasons meet and hold their meetings. Every new lodge must be Warrant (finance), warranted or Charter, chartered by a Grand Lodge, but is subject to its direction only by enforcing the published constitution of the jurisdiction. By exception, the three surviving lodges that formed the world's first known grand lodge in London (now merged into the United Grand Lodge of England) have the unique privilege to operate as ''time immemorial'', i.e., without such warrant; only one other lodge operates without a warrant – the Grand Stewards' Lodge in London, although it is not entitled to the "time immemorial" status. A Freemason is generally entitled to visit any lodge in any jurisdiction (''i.e.'', under any Grand Lodge) in amity (recognition of mutual status) with his own Grand Lodge. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dunmow Flitch
The awarding of a flitch of bacon to married couples who can swear to not having regretted their marriage for a year and a day is an old tradition, the remnants of which still survive in Great Dunmow, Essex. The Dunmow tradition originated at the nearby Little Dunmow, where it was practiced until the mid-eighteenth century. The origin of the custom is unknown, but according to tradition it was instituted by Robert Fitzwalter in the 13th century. The Dunmow flitch was referred to in ''Piers Plowman'' and by Chaucer, and seems to have already been widely-known at that time. A similar tradition practiced at Wychnor in Staffordshire can be traced back to the fourteenth century; related customs are also known from mainland Europe in Brittany and Vienna. The Dunmow tradition died out after 1751. Over the following century, several couples attempted to claim the flitch but were turned down, before the tradition was revived in 1855, largely inspired by the novel ''The Flitch of Bac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Weather Vane
A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , meaning "flag". Although partly functional, wind vanes are generally decorative, often featuring the traditional cockerel design with letters indicating the points of the compass. Other common motifs include ships, arrows, and horses. Not all wind vanes have pointers. In a sufficiently strong wind, the head of the arrow or cockerel (or equivalent) will indicate the direction from which the wind is blowing. Wind vanes are also found on small wind turbines to keep the wind turbine pointing into the wind. History The oldest known textual references to weather vanes date from 1800-1600 BCE Babylon, where a fable called ''The Fable of the Willow'' describes people looking at a weather vane "for the direction of the wind." In China, the ''Hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyramid
A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as triangular or quadrilateral, and its surface-lines either filled or stepped. A pyramid has the majority of its mass closer to the ground with less mass towards the pyramidion at the apex. This is due to the gradual decrease in the cross-sectional area along the vertical axis with increasing elevation. This offers a weight distribution that allowed early civilizations to create monumental structures.Ancient civilizations in many parts of the world pioneered the building of pyramids. The largest pyramid by volume is the Mesoamerican Great Pyramid of Cholula, in the Mexican state of Puebla. For millennia, the largest structures on Earth were pyramids—first the Red Pyramid in the Dashur Necropolis and then the Great Pyramid of Khufu, bot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Italian language, Italian, from lower Latin ''cupula'' (classical Latin ''cupella''), (Latin ''cupa''), indicating a vault resembling an upside-down cup. The cylindrical drum underneath a larger cupola is called a tholobate. Background The cupola evolved during the Renaissance from the older Oculus (architecture), oculus. Being weatherproof, the cupola was better suited to the wetter climates of northern Europe. The chhatri, seen in Architecture of India, Indian architecture, fits the definition of a cupola when it is used atop a larger structure. Cupolas often serve as a Bell tower, belfry, Belvedere (structure), belvedere, or roof lantern above a main roof. In other cases they may crown a spire, tower, or Turret (architecture), turret. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pargeting
Pargeting (or sometimes called Wall pargetting) is a decorative or waterproof plastering applied to building walls. The term, if not the practice, is particularly associated with the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. In the neighbouring county of Norfolk, the term "pinking" is used. Patrick Leigh Fermor describes similar decorations on pre-World War II buildings in Linz, Austria. "Pargeted façades rose up, painted chocolate, green, purple, cream and blue. They were adorned with medallions in high relief and the stone and plaster scroll-work gave them a feeling of motion and flow." Pargeting derives from the word 'parget', a Middle English term that is probably derived from the Old French ''pargeter'' or ''parjeter'', to throw about, or ''porgeter'', to roughcast a wall.''Webster's Dictionary''. However, the term is more usually applied only to the decoration in relief of the plastering between the studwork on the outside of half-timber houses, or sometimes covering the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabethan Architecture
Elizabethan architecture refers to buildings in a local style of Renaissance architecture built during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England from 1558 to 1603. The style is very largely confined to secular buildings, especially the large prodigy houses built for the newly-risen nobility close to the court. Many ordinary buildings continued vernacular styles with little decoration. New religious building had ended abruptly at the Dissolution of the Monasteries from . English architecture was late in adopting Renaissance standards compared to the rest of Europe, and in the Elizabethan style northern Europe rather than Italy was the main influence. After Elizabeth a new court culture of pan-European artistic ambition under James I (1603–1625) saw the style morph into Jacobean architecture. Stylistically, Elizabethan architecture is notably pluralistic. It came at the end of insular late Gothic traditions in design and construction called the Perpendicular style in c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jettying
Jettying (jetty, jutty, from Old French ''getee, jette'') is a building technique used in medieval timber framing, timber-frame buildings in which an upper floor projects beyond the dimensions of the floor below. This has the advantage of increasing the available space in the building without obstructing the street. Jettied floors are also termed ''jetties''. In the U.S., the most common surviving colonial version of this is the garrison house. Most jetties are external, but some early medieval houses were built with internal jetties. Structure A jetty is an upper floor that depends on a cantilever system in which a horizontal beam, the jetty bressummer, supports the wall above and projects forward beyond the floor below (a technique also called ''oversailing''). The bressummer (or breastsummer) itself rests on the ends of a row of jetty beams or joists which are supported by jetty plates. Jetty joists in their turn were slotted sideways into the diagonal dragon beams at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oriel Window
An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an upper floor, but is also sometimes used on the ground floor. Etymology According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', the term ''oriel'' is derived from Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman ' and Late Latin ', both meaning "gallery" or "porch", perhaps from Classical Latin ' ("curtain"). History Oriel windows became popular in the 15th century. They allowed more sunlight into a room compared to conventional flat windows, and were therefore popular in northern countries such as England. They also could increase the usable space in a house without changing the footprint of the building. Oriel windows are seen in Islamic architecture, Arab architecture in the form of mashrabiya and in Turkish are known as ''şahnişin'' or ''cumba''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
