UK Titles Editorial
A city walk becomes more interesting when you start noticing how buildings are put together. The shape above a doorway, the divisions within a window and the edge of a roof can give a familiar street a fresh set of details to follow.
These seven features were chosen for their recognisable forms on building exteriors, from entrance level to the skyline. They offer useful words for describing what you see on a British city break. Cadw’s introduction to windows and doors shows how much variety sits within those everyday openings, including vertical and horizontal sliding windows. A single feature cannot establish the date of an entire building; building-specific records provide that fuller history.
1. Fanlights: the glazed detail above a doorway
Start just above the front door. Historic England defines a fanlight as a glazed opening that is usually semicircular, while noting that the term is also used for rectangular openings above doors. The position matters as much as the outline: it is a separate glazed area over the entrance.
Within a curved example, look at the pattern of glazing bars. The Nottinghamshire Historic Environment Record describes delicate radiating designs and more elaborate patterns, including forms resembling a spider’s web. Those divisions can turn a small patch of glass into the most intricate part of a doorway.
Compare the outline of the opening with the pattern inside it. Two entrances can have similar semicircular tops but quite different arrangements of straight and curved bars.
2. Sash windows: frames designed to slide
A sash window has opening sections that slide. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings explains that traditional examples typically move vertically, with cords or chains and counterbalancing weights housed within a boxed frame. In a single-hung window one section moves; in a double-hung version both do.
In the vertical form, look for overlapping frames, each holding its own glazing. Find the horizontal line where the upper and lower sections meet, then follow their separate outlines.
There is variation here too. SPAB describes the Yorkshire light, whose sash moves sideways without weights. A window divided into small panes is therefore not automatically a vertical sash: the arrangement of the moving frames tells a more specific story than the number of panes.
3. Bay and oriel windows: glass projecting from the wall
A bay window projects beyond the main face of a building. Hastings Borough Council’s architectural glossary describes a canted bay as having a flat front with angled sides. A bow window has a curved form, so the outline gives you another distinction to notice.
Follow the projection downwards as well as across. An oriel is a bay window projecting from an upper floor, normally supported on corbels.
That makes this an exercise in looking at the whole shape. The window’s plan may be angled or curved; its relationship to the storeys below helps distinguish a ground-reaching projection from one suspended higher on the façade.
4. Mullions: the upright divisions within windows
A mullion divides the glazed units of a window vertically. South Derbyshire District Council’s illustrated guide notes that it can be made from timber, stone or metal. The word describes the member’s position and role within the opening, rather than one particular material.
Look first at the full window opening, then identify the upright pieces splitting it into sections. A broad opening divided into two or three narrower glazed units is easier to describe once you can name those dividing members.
Cadw’s account of older windows makes a useful further distinction: small glass panes could be held together by lead strips within casements fitted between stone or timber mullions. The fine network around individual pieces of glass and the larger divisions within the window operate at different scales.
5. Cornices: the projecting line that finishes an element
South Derbyshire’s glossary describes a cornice as a horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or appears over a door or window.
North Lincolnshire Council’s shopfront guide explains how the cornice marks the break between the shopfront and the building above. It overhangs the fascia, the panel carrying the shop name, and helps shed rainwater away from it.
Try following that edge across the frontage. Notice where it projects, how its underside is shaped and whether it turns around at the ends. A change in profile can make a narrow horizontal strip read as a substantial architectural frame.
6. Parapets: walls continuing above the roof edge
A parapet is the upward continuation of a wall at the edge of a roof, as the City of Edinburgh Council’s building glossary explains. On some façades it screens the roof behind it, producing a wall-like skyline even where a roof slopes out of sight.
The capping is another detail to notice. Historic England calls protective masonry or brickwork on top of a wall coping. The parapet is the raised wall; the coping is its top covering. Identifying those parts separately makes the roofline easier to read.
7. Quoins: emphasis at a building’s corners
Quoins draw attention to an external corner. Wakefield Council’s design-code glossary describes corner stones that are usually larger or differently finished than the masonry around them. Their contrast makes the meeting of two walls visually distinct.
Follow a corner from bottom to top. Look at the sizes of the blocks, the texture of their faces and how far they project relative to the surrounding wall. Some make a strong border; others are much subtler.
They need not always be stone. South Derbyshire’s guide includes brick and concrete examples and explains that quoins can serve a decorative purpose. Once you start looking for those corner patterns, the edges of buildings become as interesting as the doorways and windows between them.
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