Coping (architecture)

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Coping (from cope, Latin capa), consists of the capping or covering of a wall.

A coping may consist of stone, brick, tile, slate, metal, wood or thatch. In all cases it should be weathered to throw off the water.

In Romanesque work copings appeared plain and flat, and projected over the wall with a throating to form a drip. In later work a steep slope was given to the weathering (mainly on the outer side), and began at the top with an astragal; in the Decorated style there were two or three sets off; and in the later Perpendicular period these assumed a wavy section, and the coping mouldings continued round the sides, as well as at top and bottom, mitreing at the angles, as in many of the colleges at Oxford.

The cheapest type of coping caps the ordinary 9-inch brick wall, and consists of brick on edge above a double tile creasing, all in cement; the creasing consisting of one or two rows of tiles laid horizontally on the wall and projecting on each side about 2 inches to throw off the water.

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.