South gable end detail

A color photographic print (image #1) and a digital photograph (image #2) depicting the south gable wall of Michael Fulp House. Details shown in this image include: off-axis{1} gable-end chimney, random-rubble masonry, and attic window. Image #2, (photo 871, 11/12/10) taken during the November, 2010 dismantling of the unstable south gable, shows the position of the west chimney face just across the ridge from the main chimney mass above the eastern pitch of the roof. Rather than centering the chimney on the vertical axis of the ridge for aesthetic purposes, the builders gave priority to other more practical and beneficial considerations: (a) the objective of shedding precipitation from the lateral chimney walls down both roof planes required only that they straddle the roof ridge, not that they be centered on it; (b) centering the chimney on the ridge as it pierced the roof planes would have required a greater slope-angle in the corbelled chimney rising from the smoke chamber, subjecting the rising series of cantilevered stone courses to greater stress from the incumbent masonry load; (c) and sloping the chimney inside the attic space (rather than thrusting it straight up through the lower roof plane above the fireplace, as in Mouns Jones’ House) retained more “thermal mass” under the roof to provide warmth in the attic “dormitory.” See additional discussion of the sloped chimney in MFR10PH6--1005.01.064. Verso of image #1 indicates Kodacolor Print, October 1966 FOOTNOTE {1} Most of the chimney mass above the roof is located slightly east of the vertical axis through the roof ridge [see discussion of the sloped chimney alignment in record MFHPH21--1005.01.022], and is not centered on the fireplace in the southeast corner of the first floor.