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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 FIFTEEN

FLOORS AND CEILINGS -
OPEN CEILINGS

Open ceilings at Louisbourg were popular. The exposed joists were finished simply and applied moldings, if any, like the tringles above wooden partitions and walls, were probably carried around joists as required.

There were relatively few closed ceilings, and most were to be found in the half-storeys of buildings with knee walls that increased attic head room by 2 or 3 pieds. Often the boards for closing in the ceiling were applied to the low vertical knee wall, to the slope of the rafters, and to the underside of the joists. Otherwise, they went on top of the joists, in the open ceiling manner, creating a useful space above. In either case, the boards were planed, one pouce thick and tongued and grooved.

Several ground floor rooms in the government's second administration complex also had boarded-in ceilings, but in general a closed ceiling usually reflected a special circumstance. A boarded ceiling, for example, prevented cooking odours from rising from a kitchen into the governor's apartments above (perhaps the same reason for installing one above the engineer's kitchen potager); another lessened the dampness over the central passageway of the King's Bastion; and others enhanced the interiors of the chapels in the barracks of the King's Bastion and Port Toulouse. The proposed Block 3 church was to have had one too, as was a proposed Block 2 Conseil Supérieur meeting room.

Even more unusual was a plaster and lath ceiling. One was installed in 1754 in an addition to the Block 2 residence of the commissaire-ordonnateur. In all, 35,000 cedar laths were required.

Finally, there was the hazard of fire spreading through wooden floors and ceilings. No doubt this was a particular concern in Louisbourg, as in France, and possibly explains the order directing Swiss workers employed on Levasseur's fine Block 23A residence to lay clay on some floors.