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Researching the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada
  Recherche sur la Forteresse-de-Louisbourg Lieu historique national du Canada

DOMESTIC BUILDING CONSTRUCTION 
AT THE FORTRESS OF LOUISBOURG, 1713 - 1758

By

Eric Krause

1996 Draft Report

(Fortress of Louisbourg
Report Number H G 10)

CHAPTER TWELVE

DOOR AND WINDOW OPENINGS - DORMERS

Small gables dormers, with roof overhangs and glazed rectangular openings, occasionally with shutters, were popular in Louisbourg. A dormer, described as large, as in the King's Bastion barracks, measured 2 pieds 9 pouces high by one pied 7 pouces wide. Its smaller dormers were only one pied 9 pouces by one pied 5 pouces. A simple dormer roof (and undoubtedly the cheeks too) might consume a square toise of wooden shingles; yet four large dormers could require the same amount of slate.

Dormers, if unglazed, required a frame or sash, either casement or double-hung. Three frames for three dormers of a 1718 home totaled but half the area of a normal sized window. Another sash, placed in a dormer above a staircase, presumably to light the way, measured 2 pieds high by one pied 6 pouces wide. Sashes with 18, 12, 6 or four 7 by 8 and 8 by 9 pouce panes were all possible.

A dormer, as proposed in 1718 for several military buildings with mansard roofs, consisted of two long side posts, a pediment, four smaller side posts, two wall plates, eight common rafters and a ridge beam. Boards, perhaps only 8 ligne thick laths, wooden shingles, and possibly shutters and glazed sashes, closed in each dormer. Timber sizes varied. Uprights, wall plates and ridge members for the engineer's house, for example, were 5 by 5 pouces. Flashings varied too because lead was perhaps too expensive for private home-owners. They were more likely to choose a lime mortar (or perhaps even a gypsum plaster).

Builders placed their dormers wherever they required light, ventilation or viewing. Some situated them in line with the interior or exterior face of the perimeter wall; others placed them further up the roof slope. Some sat them directly on a wall plate; others below, severing the plate. A single row of dormers was common, and double rows occurred occasionally.

Dormers other than the traditional type were rare. The chapel of the King's Bastion barracks had some lunettes and oval dormers, with eight 6 by 8 pouce glass panes in all. Dormers with roofs rounded, hipped, or shed-like, or with arched openings, were other possibilities.