Strapwork
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Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan house outside Nottingham. It includes examples of strapwork both inside and out. |
The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture (third edition) was published in 1980. It was created for Penguin Reference and compiled by John Fleming, Hugh Honour and Nikolaus Pevsner.
It defines strapwork as: ‘Decoration originating in France (at the Royal Château de Fontainebleau) and the Netherlands c 1540, also common in Elizabethan England, consisting of interlaced bands and forms similar to fretwork or cut leather; generally used in ceilings, screens and funerary monuments.’
In England, strapwork was sometimes used in the 16th and 17th centuries as a type of decorative moulding around entrance doors.
Variations of strapwork include scrollwork (which was common during the Baroque era) and bandwork or interlaced bands (when there is no three dimensional aspect).
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