Know your catslide

Some of the words used to describe buildings are so fanciful there must be long-lost stories behind them.

Take the term for a section of a roof that is extended to cover a lean-to or side room, so that it sweeps down from the ridge nearly to the ground. One imagines some medieval builder watching a cat trapped on the roof, missing its step and tumbling down... and it has been a 'catslide' ever since.

Any type of roof can have a catslide, but they are particularly impressive in thatched roofs on timber frame buildings. A timber frame could be extended easily and cheaply by adding an extra bit of frame at ground floor level and weaving an extra bit to the bottom of the existing thatch - the mullet of the roofing trade.

Sometimes the pitch of the roof would be changed to stretch the catslide over the extension, as can be seen at Cobdens, a lovely timber framed house in the village of East Ashling, Sussex, currently on the market at £975,000 with Henry Adams and Partners (01243 533377).

Catslides usually appear on the sides of houses in this country, but when British builders emigrated to America they took the idea with them as a way of covering single-storey extensions at the rear of two-storey houses, albeit using cedar shingles rather than thatch. This can be seen all over New England.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaKWfo7K6e5FpZ25nn5jBcHyYaKabq5Wnw6a%2BwpqqoauVmMGqu81nq6Gdn5fApr7Vnqlw