Corbel facts for kids

A corbel

In architecture a corbel or console is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal sticking out from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight. It is a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall. A console, by comparison, is a piece applied to the structure. A piece of structural wood projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger" in the UK. The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels support a projecting wall or parapet, has been used since Neolithic, or New Stone Age, times.

The word "corbel" comes from Old French and derives from the Latin corbellus, a diminutive of corvus (a raven) which refers to the beak-like appearance. Similarly, the French refer to a bracket-corbel, usually a load-bearing internal feature, as a corbeau (a crow).

Images for kids

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  An interior look at the roof of a corbelled house in South Africa

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  Corbels quarried for London Bridge but unused; Swell Tor quarry, Dartmoor

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  Corbelled arch at the Royal Palace of Ugarit, 2nd millennium BC

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  Corbelling to resemble machicolations on an 18th-century folly, Broadway Tower, England

See also

In Spanish: Ménsula para niños