Why Does That Roofline Go Up in Steps? Somebody Needed Somewhere to Stand
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A gable finished as a staircase of square steps rather than a clean diagonal appears across northern Europe and Scotland. The reason is practical and the effect became a style.
The practical reason
A gable is the triangular section of wall closing the end of a pitched roof, and building it as a smooth diagonal in stone or brick means cutting every unit along the slope or accepting a ragged edge that weather will attack. Building it as a series of square steps avoids all of that, since every course can be laid level and complete with no cutting, which is faster, cheaper and stronger. The steps also give a mason somewhere to stand and somewhere to rest materials while working on the roof, and they give later workers the same when repairs are needed.
Why it suited some places
Its distribution follows building materials and roofing practice:
- •Commonest where brick or small stone was the usual material
- •Well suited to thatch and to pantiles, which need a raised edge
- •The raised gable protects the roof edge from wind lifting it
- •It acts as a firebreak between adjoining buildings in a terrace
- •Common across the Low Countries, the Baltic, Denmark and Scotland
- •Rare where large dressed stone made a clean slope easy
How it became a style
Once established for practical reasons the feature was retained and elaborated long after the reasons had gone, which is the usual history of a building detail. Wealthy merchant houses in the Low Countries and along the Baltic used increasingly ornate stepped gables facing the street as a display of standing, adding pinnacles, carved finials and decorative panels to a form that had begun as a way of avoiding cutting bricks. Scottish tower houses and burgh buildings used it consistently enough that it reads as national. Nineteenth century revival architecture then copied it onto buildings of every material, including ones where the steps are entirely decorative and carry nothing.
How the steps were finished
The tops of the steps are where a gable fails first and the detailing tells an observer a great deal about the quality of the building. A step finished with a flat brick or stone laid level presents an open joint to the weather and admits water, which freezes and lifts the coping over a few winters, and that is the commonest fault in neglected examples. A proper finish caps each step with a shaped stone that sheds water outward and overhangs slightly, or with tiles set on edge, or with a mortar weathering laid to a fall. The largest step at the apex frequently carries a finial or a chimney, which also holds the whole assembly down.
What the name records
The English names are regional and each records the same observation about what the steps are good for. The Scots term refers to crows, describing the steps as perches, and the same association appears in Dutch and German terms. Other English usage calls them stepped gables or corbie steps, using an older Scots word for a crow. The naming is consistent enough across unrelated languages to suggest independent observation rather than borrowing, and it is accurate, since the steps are used as perches by crows, gulls and pigeons, which is a minor nuisance for the buildings that carry them.
The takeaway
Finishing a gable as square steps lets every course be laid level and complete, with no units cut along a slope and no ragged edge for weather to attack, and it gives a mason somewhere to stand. The form suits brick and small stone, protects the edge of a thatched or tiled roof and acts as a firebreak. Wealthy merchants elaborated it into display long after the practical reasons had gone.