26-626: Tholsel was a name traditionally used for a local municipal and administrative building used to collect tolls and taxes and to administer trade and other documents in Irish towns and cities. It was at one stage one of the most important secular buildings in Ireland's town and cities and the level of importance was reflected in the prominence and size of these buildings as well as the expensive materials and architectural techniques used. Some historic tholsels still exist, notably The Tholsel, Kilkenny . Towards
52-505: A torus moulding (convex semi-circle) below. This cavetto cornice is sometimes also known as an "Egyptian cornice", "hollow and roll" or "gorge cornice". It has been suggested to be a reminiscence in stone architecture of the primitive use of bound bunches of reeds as supports for buildings, the weight of the roof bending their tops out. The cavetto cornice, often forming less than a quarter-circle, influenced Egypt's neighbours and as well as appearing in early Ancient Greek architecture , it
78-652: A speech in the town hall on his party's economic and financial policy in March 1929. On 20 September 1985, the Tholsel was gutted by fire. That evening, fireman Joe Stapleton was completing his duties as the Town Sergeant when he discovered a fire on the upper floor of the building. He called the fire service, opened the main gates for the fire tenders and took the 17th-century charters of the city to safety. It took 35 firemen and six fire engines to fight this fire, which
104-401: Is a simple return without these features. The term cornice may also be used to describe a form of hard window treatment along the top edge of a window. In this context, a cornice represents a board (usually wood) placed above the window to conceal the mechanism for opening and closing drapes. If covered in a layer of cloth and given padding, it is sometimes called a soft cornice rather than
130-408: Is a sloped timber on the outside facing edge of a roof running between the ridge and the eave . On a typical house, any gable will have two rakes, one on each sloped side. The rakes are often supported by a series of lookouts (sometimes also called strong arms ) and may be trimmed with a rake fascia board (which is not a true fascia ) on the outside facing edge and a rake soffit along
156-648: Is seen in Syria and ancient Iran , for example at the Tachara palace of Darius I at Persepolis , completed in 486 BC. Inspired by this precedent, it was then revived by Ardashir I (r. 224–41 AD), the founder of the Sasanian dynasty . The cavetto took the place of the cymatium in many Etruscan temples, often painted with vertical "tongue" patterns, and combined with the distinctive "Etruscan round moulding", often painted with scales. A typical example may be seen at
182-449: The classical orders in the tradition of classical architecture , the cornice is the topmost element of the entablature , which consists (from top to bottom) of the cornice, the frieze , and the architrave . Where a triangular pediment is above the entablature, the cornice continues all round the triangle, the two sides being "raking cornices". The vertical space below the cornice is typically decorated by dentils (little teeth) or
208-405: The reconstructed Etruscan temple at Villa Giulia . Additional more obscure varieties of cornice include the architrave cornice, bracketed cornice, and modillion cornice. A cornice return is an architectural detail that occurs where a roof's horizontal cornice connects to a gable's rake. It is a short horizontal extension of the cornice that occurs on each side of the gable end of
234-465: The 14th century. It was the likely location of the execution of Petronilla de Meath , a woman who was tried and found guilty, after torture, of heresy , and then flogged and burnt at the stake on 3 November 1324. It was used for the collection of tolls and other administrative functions for the town but fell into disuse in the late 15th century. A second tholsel, designed in the Renaissance style ,
260-517: The High Street. It was arcaded on the ground floor, so that markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor. The arcading was formed by voussoirs which were supported by piers at the corners, and by Doric order columns between the bays. On the first floor, the building was fenestrated by square headed casement windows with Gibbs surrounds . At roof level, there was a three-stage octagonal cupola with round headed windows in
286-430: The bottom. The cornices of a modern residential building will usually be one of three types: a box cornice, a close or closed cornice, or an open cornice. Box cornices enclose the cornice of the building with what is essentially a long, narrow box. A box cornice may further be divided into either the narrow box cornice or the wide box cornice type. A narrow box cornice is one in which "the projection of
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#1732776108135312-453: The building (see picture of Härnösands rådhus with two of these). The two most common types of cornice return are the Greek return and the soffit return (also called a boxed or box soffit return). The former includes a sloped hip shape on the inside of the cornice under the eaves, which is sheathed or shingled like the rest of the roof above it and is considered very attractive; the latter
338-423: The cornice is similar to that of a wide box cornice, except that both the lookouts and the soffit are absent. It is a lower-cost treatment that requires fewer materials and may even have no fascia board, but it lacks the finished appearance of a box cornice. Ancient Egyptian architectural tradition made special use of large cavetto mouldings as a cornice, with only a short fillet (plain vertical face) above, and
364-426: The end of the 18th century the term tholsel was typically swapped for Market House with many of the administrative functions of the original tholsel transferring to another dedicated local council or government building such as a court or sessions house. Similar buildings called tolseys or tolsey houses are found in some English towns and cities, including Burford , Gloucester and Wotton-under-Edge . In both cases
390-503: The first stage, clock faces in the second stage and louvres in the third stage, surmounted by a weather vane . Internally, the principal room was the assembly room on the first floor, which featured a plasterwork cornice to the ceiling. The theologian , John Wesley , visited the building soon after it was completed and preached to a small audience in July 1762. The Irish republican and leader of Fianna Fáil , Éamon de Valera , gave
416-484: The larger modillions . The soffit , or horizontal space under a projecting cornice, may be elaborately carved with vegetal designs. A rake is an architectural term for an eave or cornice that runs along the gable of the roof of a modern residential structure. It may also be called a sloping cornice , a raking cornice . The trim and rafters at this edge are called rakes , rake board , rake fascia , verge-boards , barge-boards or verge- or barge-rafters . It
442-457: The late 14th century, which incorporates the charter given to the people of Kilkenny by William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke in the early 13th century. Cornice In architecture , a cornice (from the Italian cornice meaning "ledge" ) is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around
468-440: The rafter serves as a nailing surface for the soffit board as well as the fascia trim." This is possible if the slope of the roof is fairly steep and the width of the eave relatively narrow. A wide box cornice, a common practice on houses with gentle roof slopes and wide eaves, requires lookouts to support it and provide a surface to attach the soffits securely. Box cornices often have ventilation screens laid over openings cut in
494-427: The sides of the building), not all eaves are usually considered cornices. Eaves are primarily functional and not necessarily decorative, while cornices have a decorative aspect. A building's projecting cornice may appear to be heavy and hence in danger of falling, particularly on commercial buildings, but it often is actually very light and made of pressed metal. In Ancient Greek architecture and its successors using
520-408: The soffits to allow air to circulate within the cornice. A closed or snub cornice is one in which there is no projection of the rafters beyond the walls of the building and, therefore, no soffit or fascia. This type of cornice is easy to construct but provides little aid in dispersing water away from the building and is sometimes considered to lack aesthetic value. In an open cornice, the shape of
546-549: The term is derived from the Middle English tolsell , from tol (" toll ") + -sell ( Old English sele "hall", "house"). However, buildings described as a Tholsel have been more broadly used as a town hall, a courthouse, a town gate, a prison, a market house, a council chamber, a customs house, a guildhall, and a place where tolls were collected. In Scotland the term Tolbooth was used. The Tholsel building in Dublin
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#1732776108135572-568: The top edge of a pedestal, or along the top of an interior wall. A simple cornice may be formed with a crown, as in crown moulding atop an interior wall or above kitchen cabinets or a bookcase. A projecting cornice on a building has the function of throwing rainwater free of its walls. In residential building practice, this function is handled by projecting gable ends, roof eaves , and gutters . However, house eaves may also be called "cornices" if they are finished with decorative moulding. In this sense, while most cornices are also eaves (overhanging
598-637: Was built in the late Middle Ages as a merchants' hall, at the corner of Nicholas Street and Christ Church place, next to the Church of St. Nicholas Within . In the late 15th century, it was the home of the first mechanical public clock in Ireland. In the late eighteenth century, the Dublin Tholsel was used as a courthouse, being notable as the location where many Irish people, convicted of crimes, were sentenced to be transported to exile in Australia . It
624-418: Was demolished around the year 1820. The Tholsel, Kilkenny The Tholsel ( Irish : An Tholsel, Cill Chainnigh ), also known as City Hall , is a municipal building in the High Street, Kilkenny , County Kilkenny , Ireland. It served as the meeting place by Kilkenny Borough Council until the council was abolished in 2014. The first tholsel, or guildhall, in the High Street may have dated back to
650-432: Was erected in the High Street in 1579. By the mid-18th century, the earlier tholsel had become dilapidated and the borough council, led by Alderman William Colles, decided to commission a new building on the same site. The new building was designed in the neoclassical style , built in rubble masonry at a cost of £1,315 and was completed in 1761. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing west onto
676-509: Was started by a small electrical fault. The building was subsequently restored and re-opened to the public in February 1987. The assembly room continued to serve as the council chamber of Kilkenny Borough Council, until the council was dissolved and administration of the town was amalgamated with Kilkenny County Council in 2014. Important documents held in the Tholsel include The Primus Kilkenniensis, or First Book of Kilkenny, printed in
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