Architecture Glossary

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Label-stop or head stop – An ornamental or figural boss at the beginning and end of a hood-mould.

Laced windows – Windows pulled visually together vertically by strips, usually in brick of a different colour from that of the wall, which continue vertically the lines of the window surrounds. It was a popular motif c. 1720 in England.

Lady chapel – A chapel dedicated to the Virgin, usually built east of the chancel and forming a projection from the main building.

Lady Chapel - Hereford Cathedral

Lancet window – A slender pointed-arched window, much used in the early c 13.

Lantern – A small circular or polygonal turret with windows all round, crowning a roof or dome.

Lantern cross – A churchyard cross with lantern-shaped top; usually with sculptured representation on the sides of the top.

St. Paul Cathedral

Lantern tower – A tall lantern, often over the crossing af a church, e.g. Canterbury Cathedral.

Latin cross – A cross with three short arms and long arm.

Lattice window – A window with diamond-shaped leaded lights or with glazing bars arranged like an open-work screen; also, loosely any hinged window, as distinct from a sash window.

Leaded lights – Rectangular or diamond-shaped panes of glass set in lead cames to form a window. In general use in domestic architecture until 18th Century..

Leaf and dart – An ovolo moulding decorated with a pattern of alternate leaf-like forms and darts, found especially on the echinus of an Ionic capital. (See Egg & dart)

Lesbian cymatium – A cyma reversa moulding often decorated with leaf and dart.

Lesene - A pilaster without a base and capital often called a pilaster-strip and usually found on the exterior of later Anglo-saxon and early Romanesque Church. They served as bonding courses in thin rubble walls, and thus split up an unbroken expanse and preventing longitudinal spread.

Lierne - A minor rib in a complex rib vault. Liernes do not spring from the main springers.

Linenfold – Panelling ornamented with a conventional representation of a piece of linen laid in vertical folds. One such piece fills one panel.

Lintel – A horizontal beam or stone bridging an opening.

Listel – See Fillet.

Load-bearing or load-carrying construction – Construction in which walls, posts, columns or arcades support the weight of the ceiling, upper floors, etc., as distinct from frame construction.

Lodge – Lodge was a medieval term for the masons’ workshop or tracing house, with living-quarter, set up when a church, castle or house was to be built. In the case of cathedrals and great abbeys it was often permanent, under a resident master, to maintain the fabric of the building.

Lodge - Lacock Abbey

Loggia – A gallery or room open on one or more side, sometimes pillared, it may also be a separate structure.

Lowside window – A window usually on the south side of the chancel, lower than the others, possibly intended for communication between persons outside the chancel and priest within; perhaps also for the sanctus bell to be heard outside the church. It was formerly, and erroneously, called a leper window.

Lozenge – A diamond shape, i.e. a flat rectilinear figure with four equal sides but two angles sharper than the others.

Lucarne – A small opening in an attic or a spire. Also called A dormer window.

Lunette – A semicircular opening or tympanum. The term can also be applied to any flat, semicircular surface

Lych gate – A covered wooden gateway with open sides at the entrance to a churchyard, providing a resting-place for a coffin.

Architecture Glossary

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