Spire

Spire of Salisbury Cathedral (completed 1320) (404 feet (123 metres), with tower and spire)

A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples.^[1] A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape.^[1] Spires are typically made of stonework or brickwork, or else of timber structures with metal cladding, ceramic tiling, roof shingles, or slates on the exterior.^[1]

Since towers supporting spires are usually square, square-plan spires emerge directly from the tower's walls, but octagonal spires are either built for a pyramidal transition section called a broach at the spire's base, or else freed spaces around the tower's summit for decorative elements like pinnacles.^[1] The former solution is known as a broach spire.^[1] Small or short spires are known as spikes, spirelets, or flèches.^[1]^[2]

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan, eds. (2015), "spire", A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-967498-5, retrieved 2020-05-27
^ Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan, eds. (2015), "flèche", A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-967498-5, retrieved 2020-05-27

[:1-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan, eds. (2015), "spire", A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-967498-5, retrieved 2020-05-27

[:0-2] Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan, eds. (2015), "flèche", A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-967498-5, retrieved 2020-05-27

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