clerestory

plural clerestories · alternative clearstory · alternative clerstory

1. architectureThe upper part of a wall containing windows to let in natural light to a building, especially in the nave, transept and choir of a church or cathedral.

   Following these signs, he beheld three or four men with bent bows, leaning from the clerestory gallery.

   1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, “In the Abbey Church”, in The Black Arrow

   2 more examples

   On the Visby-Västerhejde Railway there is a steam car. [...] The upperworks consist of a short clerestory coach body with end platforms and the engine chimney protruding from the roof like a stovepipe.

   1939 July, “Overseas Railways: Baltic Island Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 49

   The cars built before 1913 had clerestory roofs, after the American style, and also were provided with gates and end vestibule platforms requiring gatemen.

   1951 January, “The Inner Circle and its Rolling Stock”, in Railway Magazine, page 59