Editing Pargeting

{{Short description|Decorative or waterproof plaster applied to building walls}}
[[File:Pargeting, County Museum, Clare.jpg|thumb|Pargeting on the upper wall of the [[Ancient House, Clare|County Museum]] in [[Clare, Suffolk]].]]
[[File:Ipswich Ancient House.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Ancient House, Ipswich|Ancient House]] in [[Ipswich]] has a particularly fine example of pargeting, depicting scenes from the four continents. When the hall was built in 1670, [[Australia]] and [[Antarctica]] had not yet been discovered by Europeans, and the Americas were considered a single continent.]]

'''Pargeting''' (or sometimes called''' Wall pargetting''') is a decorative or waterproof [[plaster]]ing applied to building walls. The term, if not the practice, is particularly associated with the [[English county|English counties]] of [[Suffolk]] and [[Essex]]. In the neighbouring county of [[Norfolk]], the term "pinking" is used.<ref>{{cite book |last=Darley |first=Gillian |year=1983 |title=Built in Britain |place=London |publisher=[[Weidenfeld & Nicolson]] |isbn=0-297-78312-2 |page=56}}</ref>

[[Patrick Leigh Fermor]] describes similar decorations on pre-World War II buildings in [[Linz]], Austria. "Pargeted façades rose up, painted chocolate, green, purple, cream and blue. They were adorned with medallions in high relief and the stone and plaster scroll-work gave them a feeling of motion and flow."<ref>Fermor, Patrick Leigh, "A Time of Gifts," at 147 (New York Review Books, 2005)({{ISBN|978-1-59017-165-3}}).</ref>

Pargeting derives from the word 'parget', a Middle English term that is probably derived from the Old French ''pargeter'' or ''parjeter'', to throw about, or ''porgeter'', to roughcast a wall.<ref>''[[Webster's Dictionary]]''.</ref> However, the term is more usually applied only to the decoration in relief of the plastering between the [[wall stud|studwork]] on the outside of [[Half-timbering|half-timber]] houses, or sometimes covering the whole wall.<ref name=eb />

The devices were stamped on the wet plaster. This seems generally to have been done by sticking a number of pins in a board in certain lines or curves, and then pressing on the wet plaster in various directions, so as to form [[geometric]]al figures. Sometimes these devices are in relief, and in the time of [[Elizabeth I of England]] represent figures, [[bird]]s and [[foliage]]. Fine examples can be seen at [[Ipswich]], [[Maidstone]], and [[Newark-on-Trent]].<ref name=eb>{{EB1911|wstitle=Pargetting}}</ref>

The term is also applied to the lining of the inside of smoke [[flue]]s to form an even surface for the passage of the smoke.<ref name=eb />

==See also==
*[[Harl]]
*[[Parge coat]]
*[[Plasterwork]]
*[[Yeseria]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{commons category-inline|Pargeting}}
*{{cite web |url= http://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/pargeting/pargeting.htm |last=Buxbaum |first=Tim |year=2001 |title=Pargeting |work=The Building Conservation Directory}}

[[Category:Architectural elements]]
[[Category:Plastering]]
[[Category:Wallcoverings]]