Glossary of Architecture - F

F

Fanlight

Window, semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan.

Feretory

Enclosure or chapel within which the ferreter shrine, or tomb (as in Henry VII.'s chapel), was placed.

Flushwork

The decorative combination on the same flat plane of flint and ashlar stone. It is characteristic of medieval buildings, most of the survivors churches, in several areas of Southern England, but especially East Anglia. If the stone projects from a flat flint wall, the term is proudwork - as the stone stands "proud" rather than being "flush" with the wall.

Flying buttress

A specific type of buttress usually found on a religious building such as a cathedral.

Flying rib

An exposed structural beam over the uppermost part of a building which is not otherwise connected to the building at its highest point. A feature of H frame constructed concrete buildings and some modern skyscrappers.

Foot-stall

Literally translation of “pedestal”, the lower part of a pier in architecture.

Formeret

French term for the wall-rib carrying the web or filling-in of a vault.