Roofs, Windows, etc.—Roofs were generally covered with tiles, stone-slates, and doubtless thatch. Examples of the two former are in our museums. The flat tiles had turned-up edges; these were removed near the top for the next tile to lap over. The flanges were covered by half-round tiles, larger below than above, so that one lapped over the other. The flat tiles were frequently if not always of a key-stone shape, so that the bottom of the upper one set into the wider top of the lower one. (See one figured in Allen’s London.) Some have a single nail-hole near the top; but others, I suppose, can only have been nailed against the slanting sides. (See V. le Duc’s article “Tuille” for the Romanesque system.) In better work ante-fix tiles covered the terminations of the round tiles at the eaves. “Part of an ante-fix of red terra-cotta in the form of a lion’s mask” was found in the Strand (V.C.H.). There are several in Reading Museum and one in the British Museum from Chester. The slates were thick and of a pointed shape below, forming diagonal lines when laid. Both the stones and tiles were very heavy, and must have required strong roof timbering.
Fig. 15.
Fig. 16.
Ridges were of tile or stone. A fragment in the Reading Museum from Silchester has a knob rising from the saddle-back of a ridge-tile strangely mediæval in appearance (Fig. [8]). Probably one came at each end of the ridge only (cf. V. le Duc’s “Faîtière”). Ridges were frequently terminated by stone gable knobs, which have been found in many places (see Ward’s Roman Buildings), and occasionally in such a position as to show that a gable end fronted a street. A ridge termination in Exeter Museum is shown upside down as if it were a corbel (Fig. [15] is a memory sketch, and compare Fig. [16] from Bath). These terminations are late derivations from acroteria and prototypes of gable crosses; they are links in a continuous chain from Greek to Gothic.
Fig. 17.
Little joiner’s work has survived to our day. Doors would not have been very different from our own, as is shown by many examples of framed panel work from foreign sites in museums. A bronze pivot in the Museum at Westminster Abbey must have been a hinge of a door (Fig. [17]). Iron strap-hinges in the museums are very similar to our own. There are two in the British Museum (Fig. [18]). The plane found at Silchester is evidence for joiner’s work. In Leicester Museum is a fragment of a lion’s head and leg from a piece of furniture—probably a table. Turning in a lathe was practised, as some wooden dishes at the Guildhall show. There are many excellent locks and keys and hinges and handles in our museums.
