Spot the Frippet: finial.

It's easy in midwinter to hunch against the weather and see no further than the flagstones under your boots.

(Yes, friends in Australia and New Zealand and other southern climes, feel smug if you must. The rest of us are suffering here.)

So, to encourage you to look up (though not if it's actually hailing), then how about seeing if you can spot a finial? It'll probably be sticking up from the top of a spire, dome, or roof end.


Taj Mahal. Photo by Rob Pinion (Robpinion)




Thorns, Suffolk, England, Photo: Keith Evans / Roof finial / CC BY-SA 2.0


This elegant object was designed by Samuel McIntire for a fence post at the Jerathmeel Peirce House in Salem, Massachusetts, USA.

Chartres Cathedral in France.

If you are surrounded by modern undecorated tower blocks then you may yet find a finial on a piece of furniture:

The finials on this French chair are on the thing's shoulders.

Do have fun searching - and even if you don't find a finial, then just a glimpse of two of the sky, however grey, will, I hope, be very cheering.

Spot the Frippet: finial. This is basically the same word as final. The Latin word finis means limit or boundary.