"Every time" wrote in message
...
My question might be too estoteric for this group, but thought I'd
give it a try anyway.

I am trying to think of the term used to describe the ornate sterns of
ships such as the HMS Victory, with the windows and the gold
scrollwork, etc. It's on the tip of my tongue - I used to know what it
was called - but it just won't come to me.

Not fretwork, or cottagework, or Tudorwork, but something along those
lines.

Any help appreciated.

The whole elaborately decorated stern area of a ship like the Victory was
collectively called the "stern galleries". There was generally a stern
gallery for each deck, with the lowest one enclosed behind the stern windows
(yes, that's what they were called, not ports).The galleries above on ships
with more decks were open, allowing the officers to step out onto them. All
the elaborately carved decoration was called, in those days, "carved works".
On the two aft sides of this ship just forward of the stern galleries were a
pair of enclosed quarter-galleries, one of which used as the captain's
bathroom.

By the 1790's that elaborate carved work was beginning to fall out of favor,
as a cost savings, and subsequently it was limited to simpler bas-relief
carving and paint instead of gilding. Also by that time it was beginning to
be common to paint the sides of the ships. Ocher was popular, and red also
began to appear. After the Battle of Trafalgar, it became popular to paint
the strakes containing the gun ports in a checkerboard yellow and black
pattern, called "Nelson's chequer" after his origination of the style, and
ships that had been in the battle, and their captains, were often called
"Nelson's chequer players".


Tom Dacon