Jerkinhead Roof Origin

The oed draws a possible connection between jerkinhead and kirkinhead.

Jerkinhead roof origin.

Disappointment reigned as the oed informed me that jerkinhead is of uncertain origin. But it is of an unknown origin. The term jerkin is much older dating from the 16c. Jerkinhead roofs date back to the medieval times but gained popularity in the late 18th and early 19th century.

The effect is a roof line that folds or leans back into the ridge. A jerkinhead roof may also be called a jerkin head roof a half hipped roof a clipped gable or even a jerkinhead gable. The end of a roof that is hipped sloped for only part of its height leaving a truncated gable. This house in the 1700 block of south delaware has three jerkinheads.

The jerkinhead gable roof design was commonly used in the mid 1920s by gilbert stanley underwood a park lodge designer for the utah parks company. A jerkinhead is a truncated gable at the end of a roof. Although the origin of the word doesn t seem to be known a jerkin is a close fitting jacket usually with cropped sleeves which may have inspired the use of the term for this clipped off gable. The origin of the design dates to medieval times but was revived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when old world.

Jerkinhead roofs are sometimes found on american bungalows and cottages small american houses from the 1920s and 1930s and assorted victorian house styles. A hip roof hip roof or hipped roof is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls usually with a fairly gentle slope although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak. The jerkinhead roof goes by many different names including jerkinhead jerkin head half hipped clipped gable and english hipped roofs. These names all attempt to describe the roof as a.

Perhaps for jerking as if the slope were jerkily interrupted an earlier and even more obscure reference is kirkin head dating from 1703 which may suggest that jerkinhead is a corruption of that earlier term. Though this word has uncertain origins the oed explains that it could have been a variation of kirkin head in which we find kirk an old scots variation of the word church. Perhaps sloped gables first appeared on the heads or roofs of churches but there seems to be no clear evidence of this. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid.