Talk:Stepped gable

Dutch gable
What is the difference (if any) between a crow-stepped gable and a Dutch gable? Richard New Forest (talk) 20:33, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Dutch gables have curves, as now covered in Dutch gable article (perhaps a redlink when question was asked). —Doncram (talk) 15:04, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

"World-wide examples"
The section titled "World-wide examples" seems to be a completely arbitrary, short and not extremely informative list. Some of the entries there are redlinked entirely. Unless some effort is made to systematise it or at least shape it up a good deal, I suggest that it should be removed. I can't see what it adds, information-wise. Yakikaki (talk) 18:25, 16 October 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, since no one has objected I will remove this section. Yakikaki (talk) 15:17, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Most notable earliest example is missing
Please add the Overstolzenhaus in Cologne, it was built in 1230, some 200 odd years before the 15th century. The style spread from the German northwest into Holland and Denmark, and was carried by the German Order to exclaves in Latvia, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.118.139.112 (talk) 17:19, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Requested move 2 November 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Moved as proposed. Red  Slash  00:15, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Crow-stepped gable → Stepped gable – I have never ever heard of a "crow-stepped" gable, and I can't figure out what it even means. There is no derivation explaining any "crow-ness" in the article. The term I know is common in the U.S., and I presume worldwide, is "Stepped gable", which is given as an alternate in the lede. In the U.S. stepped gables were brought by immigrants from the Netherlands, Germany, Dnemark etc., and turn out to be well-suited in some areas but do poorly in freeze-and-thaw weather of upstate New York, for example. (Also, by the way, there are frequently much less steep steps than in the photos shown, so balance on that is needed too.) I request move to simpler, more universally known, clear term. Doncram (talk) 03:29, 2 November 2019 (UTC) —Relisting. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:15, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: Further, browsing in google results yields no explanation of crow for me. This "Crowsteps in Fife the Flemish connection" article is the best independent-of-wikipedia discussion I can find, and it uses "stepped gable" and "crow-stepped gable" interchangeably without explanation of any difference intended.  I dunno, are the steps supposedly the size of crows (not true in general)?  I suppose that crows might sit on the steps, but I see no images or mention of that anywhere, as if that in fact never happens at all, much less commonly. --Doncram (talk) 03:47, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
 * FYI, i just posted notice of this move request at three wikiprojects' Talk pages, for Architecture, NRHP, and HSITES. --Doncram (talk) 00:10, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I see no reference to "crow-stepped gable in my 1900 Dictionary of Architecture and Building, but it does briefly mention stepped gables. I've found that it those three volumes by Sturgis don't mention it, it probably bisn't important. I support the move.  Acroterion   (talk)   00:35, 10 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. The usual term. Johnbod (talk) 02:30, 10 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Perhaps this is too obvious, but the gable has steps, and those steps are (at least figuratively, but sometimes in practice) a resting place for crows. Hence crow step. A gable with crow steps is a "crow-stepped gable".  If you need some sources.Sturgis reprint Oxford Dictionary No idea whether or not "stepped gable" is or has become more common, but there are plenty of sources using this terminology, of much greater antiquity than Wikipedia.  For example: Bradshaw, 1843.   Theramin (talk) 03:20, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Theramin, but while those two sources do define the term, neither actually explains any crow association to me. Seems you are making up, on your own, the explanation "sometimes a resting place for crows", pretty much like what i assumed is a possibility, the other one I assumed possible is that they are the size of crows. But your explanation is not sourced.
 * Your first source, the Sturgis reprint, gives merely "Crow step: Any one of the steps of a stepped gable.(Called also Cat Step, Corbel Step, and Corbie Step)", with no derivation info, and kind of asserting that a "stepped gable" is a thing, without actually asserting that "crow-stepped gable" is a valid term.
 * Your second source, the Oxford Dictionary, defines "crow-steps" as "steps forming the stepped tops of a gable, the crow-stone being the topmost stone at the apex" and comments that crow-stepped gables or cat-stepped gables, were common in Netherlands, German, Scandinavian areas and "influenced architecture East Anglia and Eastern Scotland." It does not use "crow-stepped gable" as a term either, and by the way the latter omits mentioning usage in the United States (and I would assume also in Canada), where I have never seen "crow" mentioned.
 * And the 1843 source describes a church having "that peculiarly Scotch feature, the crow-stepped gable." None of these explicitly explain "crow-ness" or "cat-ness", anyhow.
 * It seems to me that the article should be titled "Stepped gable" with description that these occur historically in Flemish-lands, German-lands, Scandinavia AND the U.S. And explain that "Crow-stepped" has been alternative or even primary usage in Scotland and other places where we can find sources saying that term is explicitly used and is the common term (which I think will not be the case for the U.S., though User:MB below asserts some usage in newspapers in the U.S., so maybe acknowledging usage "rarely in the U.S." or "at least sometimes in the U.S." or the like would be necessary).  But I think "stepped gable" will be understood and used everywhere.  And similarly explain where the "Corbie-stepped" variant has been used and is most common (which I think will not include U.S.). --Doncram (talk) 22:35, 16 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. The usual term. Johnbod (talk) 02:30, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment: I did a search in Newspapers.com and found 77 hits in newspapers (1862 - later 20th century) describing buildings (in both US and Europe) as having "crow-step gable"s or "crow-stepped gable". The only one explaining the term,, says the steps originate in Germany 1620-1640 and are "for the use of crows", according to "1875 Chamber's Encyclopedia". Not sure an architect would design a gable to be useful for crows, the name was probably applied because they were used by crows. Searching for "corbie step" give 115 hits, but a lot are duplicates (the same article reprinted in many newspapers). This article says the "crow-stepped gable" is more commonly known as "stair-stepped gable"" - but our WP article doesn't even mention stair-stepped in the lead (just a brief mention in alternative terms section). Searching on "stair-stepped gable" gives just two hits, so this is probably not a common term. Searching on "step gable" and "stepped gable" give hundreds of hits (these would include those with "crow" prefixed but it is still clearly the most used term, as far as I can tell with this crude and quick method. So Support. MB 03:49, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Support. Usual term. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:02, 11 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Crow Stepped Gable.
This is a very common architectural term in both Scotland & Northern England. The style no doubt emanated from contact with the Dutch & Flemish traders, and second hand from those of Scandinavia & the Baltic.

Also known as a corbie stepped gable from the Scots word for crow (from the Latin corvus via the French corbeaux or corbel).

https://flemish.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2013/12/06/crowsteps-in-fife-the-flemish-connection-part-1/

https://canmore.org.uk/collection/564969

https://buffaloah.com/a/DCTNRY/c/crow.html Reb0118

--(talk) 08:07, 11 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Thank you to User:Reb0118 for all that. The first one mentions "the corbie or ‘crow-stepped’ gable that is often seen combined with a clay pantile roof, particularly in the picturesque East Neuk fishing villages. Although seen elsewhere along the eastern coast and inland, these distinctive roofs contribute...", and later comments about, in Rotterdam, "the so called ‘Scottish Houses’ (Het Lammeken, built in 1539, and De Stuys, built in 1561) both of which, although much altered, have stepped gables (‘trapgevel’)."   My takeaway is partly that "stepped gable" is a universal term.
 * The second uses the term "Roof and crow stepped gable" for a specific historic building, photographed, which I think is in Edinburgh, Scotland, and states "Crowsteps are squared stones which form step-like projections on the sloping sides of a gable. They were common in Scottish architecture in the 16th and 17th centuries, and are often referred to as 'corbie-steps' from the French 'corbie' or crow."
 * The third one I've seen, is this already used in the article? It is the "Buffalo as an Architectural Museum"'s "Illustrated Architecture Dictionary"'s definition for term "Crow-stepped gable".   It includes: "Early examples, from the 15th century onwards, are found in England, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden. / The step gable is a feature of the northern-renaissance revival styles."  Again I take away that "step gable" is universal.  It uses a photo that looks to me could not possibly be of anything in Buffalo, New York, USA.  Frankly it looks to me like a photo of one of the historic warehouses in Amsterdam or similar in Europe.  Buffalo, New York, though maybe at the end of the Erie Canal completed in the 1820s, is not a city of small canals and small warehouses of merchants using pulleys to lift bales of goods into a small doorway into a small upperlevel space.  Places like that were common, however in Amsterdam in its Golden Age, like in the 1500s or 1600s.  Offhand I don't think that there are buildings like that in Copenhagen, Denmark, either, which seems to me to have later, bigger buildings.
 * Anyhow, thanks again for these good sources to use. --Doncram (talk) 22:55, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

stepped gables vs. false-front facades having stepped parapets?

 * (subsection and its title inserted later)
 * , I also ran across a mention that the typical old-west storefront facade is also called a stepped gable - although instead of many small steps, they usually have just one big one.


 * These aren't the best images (I'm sure you can envision an image from any old western movie), and I don't have a source but it's something someone could maybe add to the article. MB 00:13, 17 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Yeah, we need for the article deal with the steps that sometimes appear in Western false-front architecture, or in other Commercial architecture in the U.S. where there is basically a parapet with a low step up in the center. On the front facade only, and not really necessary to support the roof.  At least the article should refer to them.  Maybe these should be termed as having a "stepped parapet", instead, if they have one low step-up in the middle.  The term "stepped parapet" is used in the NRHP document for a building in East Side Downtown Historic District, I just noticed, but I don't know what that building looks like, yet.  These do not seem to me like really being "stepped gables", because you can't see any gable at all for these.  Many of them have completely flat roofs, or there is a barrel vault or a very low gable or a shed-roof hidden behind the parapet.


 * On the other hand, there are "real" stepped gables in the U.S. built by immigrants, including a series along the historic Seneca Turnpike across central New York State, which were pretty much built by "immigrants" from Connecticut and elsewhere in New England, who were previously immigrants from Europe. In "real" stepped gables you have stepped gables really supporting the roof, and often/usually with a stepped gable at both ends of the roof.  The stepped gables in a number of these, along Seneca Turnpike, were broken down so that a proper protruding gable roof could be extended, which would properly shed off snow and icicles and so on.  Because there were always horrible leaks where the roof met the stepped gable.  Apparently you can go up into the attics of old masonry buildings and see the remnants of the stepped gables inside.  Perhaps there is not as much snow or freezing and thawing in Amsterdam or Germany (maybe just warmer) and not in Scandinavia either (maybe just colder without freezing and thawing). --Doncram (talk) 00:31, 17 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi, thanks User:MB for adding more and making that into a "packed" gallery. (And interesting about your constructive involvement on Seneca Turnpike topic.  Please see new Talk page section at the article that redirects to.)  Yeah, about these Old West storefronts.  I don't want to call them "stepped gables", even if that term has been used sometimes.  I am inclined to call them "stepped parapets".  We don't have to ratify what is arguably incorrect usage out there;  we need to exercise some editorial discretion.  Of course we need to refer to actual sources out there, and "coining" a new phrase would not be right, but I am figuring that there must be proper architectural expert discussion available somewhere.  I am pretty sure proper architectural discusion about Western false-front architecture does not use term "stepped gable", and I suspect actual usages are lower-quality, less-informed.  Argh, still this kind of stuff is a bother to get right. --Doncram (talk) 12:02, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Continuing about what is a "real" stepped gable or not, another problematic-to-classify example is Chateau Pacheteau, built in 1906 at a winery in Napa Valley, California, NRHP-listed in 2015. "The most unusual feature is the defensive stepped false front façade including a crenellated parapet composed of crenels and merlons, which appear again above the stone portico below. The parapet obscures the wood shake covered gable roof behind it." (NRHP document, with numerous photos) Should that be termed by us as a stepped gable, because it looks like one, although it does not have a matching one at other end of the roof, and although it is described as a false front. It does not seem to be essential in holding up the roof, it is form rather than function. "Stepped parapet" as a term sounds good to me, to describe Western false-front and other examples where it seems not functional in nature. It sure would be good to find any architecture textbook-like discussion asserting this distinction; i don't want to appear to be coining something new. --Doncram (talk) 18:35, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Google searching on "stepped gable vs. stepped parapet" finds this article, titled "All About Parapets and Battlements: Fortification Details in Architecture" which seems helpful, is just about making the distinction. But then it also seems a bit non-reliable, as if written merely to garner clicks, although it does cite legitimate sources. It is a webpage published by "ThoughtCo.com", formerly About Education (according to bio about Jackie Craven, article author.  I dunno, i too have "written about architecture" for approaching on 20 years now (well, more than 1 decade contributing in Wikipedia, anyhow). --Doncram (talk) 19:53, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Another hit is this "ask difference.com" article "Pediment vs. Gable - What's the difference?", sourced from, well, Wikipedia. It includes: "A gable wall or gable end more commonly refers to the entire wall, including the gable and the wall below it. A parapet made of a series of curves (Dutch gable) or horizontal steps (crow-stepped gable) may hide the diagonal lines of the roof. Gable ends of more recent buildings are often treated in the same way as the Classic pediment form. But unlike Classical structures, which operate through [[trabeation], the gable ends of many buildings are actually bearing-wall structures. Thus, the detailing can be ambiguous or misleading.Gable style is also used in the design of fabric structures, with varying degree sloped roofs, dependent on how much snowfall is expected. Sharp gable roofs are a characteristic of the Gothic and classical Greek styles of architecture." I don't quite understand that middle sentence, bolded by me, but I can see it is about structure/functionality.  Does trabeation as a term apply only to post-and-lintel type construction, where horizontal beams are supported by posts, and not to "real" stepped gable buildings where horizontal beams are supported by masonry walls? --Doncram (talk) 20:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Diagrams/source on waterproofing methods
Would be very helpful if the waterproofing methods from the "Construction" section were accompanied by some diagrams. I admit I need this for personal research, but a more objective reason is that the article itself is just hard to read and understand without diagrams. I assume the source is Hogan's "History of Muchalls Castle", which I, unfortunately, haven't been able to find. If anyone could provide it I'd be grateful (or any other source on waterproofing methods for stepped gables). AndreiMiculita (talk) 12:42, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Draft:Crow-stepped gable into Stepped gable
Draft has information that is not in article and can be added. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:32, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Huh? What draft? It redirects here, so what's the point? Johnbod (talk) 03:14, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the actual proposed merge is from Draft:Crow-stepped gable. Tollens (talk) 05:50, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks - I'll ponder. Header changed. Johnbod (talk) 14:15, 13 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Support limited merge. The various French regional sections all seem much the same as each other & elsewhere in Europe frankly. The last section on urban houses has more to pick. I could do it if people are ok with that. Johnbod (talk) 13:05, 16 June 2024 (UTC)