Graphical Construction Glossary >> masonry. >> stonework >> String Course

String Course

Also called a belt course. A horizontal band of decorative masonry extending across the face of a building or around features such as columns and pilasters.

For the most part these are just features, but there are some that maybe function as drip edges. Here is a large and imposing one running around a building at just below the first floor window height.

Here again is a course just under a window level. This time a lot smaller. They can of course be placed anywhere on the building's facade.

These courses are all about design and being different and I would love to tell you that the rope and knot is a single course of brickwork. Sadly it is not, it was carved after the bricks were laid. "BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE"; the brown courses are string courses though, note how they go around the brick pier.

If your neighbour happens to be proud of his wall with a couple of courses laid at 45 degrees showing a saw tooth effect, you can now tell him that it is nothing new, no big deal; the Byzantine brickies were doing it on bell towers in 550 AD. (The holes are putlog holes left after the scaffold was removed.) Ravenna again.

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"What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?
Adam Smith 1723-1790

"When we build, let us think that we build for ever."John Ruskin 1819-1900