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Spire
A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure
on top of a roof or tower, especially at the
summit of church steeples.[1] A spire may
have a square, circular, or polygonal plan,
with a roughly conical or pyramidal
shape.[1] Spires are typically built of
stonework or brickwork, or else of timber
structure with metal cladding, ceramic
tiling, shingles, or slates on the exterior.[1]

Since towers supporting spires are usually

square, square-plan spires emerge directly
from the tower's walls, but octagonal
spires either called for a pyramidal
transition section called a broach at the
spire's base, or else freed spaces around
the tower's summit for decorative Spire of Salisbury Cathedral (completed 1320) (404 feet
elements like pinnacles.[1] The former (123 metres), with tower and spire)
solution is known as a broach spire.[1]
Small or short spires are known as spikes,
spirelets, or flèches.[1][2]

This sense of the word spire is attested in English since the 1590s, spir having been used in Middle
Low German since the 14th century, a form related to the Old English word spir, meaning a
sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass.[3]

Contents
Gothic spires
Crown spires
Needle-spires and Hertfordshire spikes
Splay-foot
Flèches
Pinnacles
Traditional types of spires
Notable spires
Religious symbolism
See also
References

Gothic spires

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The Gothic church spire originated in the 12th century as a

simple, four-sided pyramidal structure on top of a church
tower. The spire could be constructed of masonry, as at
Salisbury Cathedral, or of wood covered with lead, as at Notre-
Dame de Paris. Gradually, spires became taller, slimmer, and
more complex in form. Triangular sections of masonry, called
broaches were added to the sides, at an angle to the faces of
the tower, as at St Columba, Cologne. In the 12th and 13th
centuries, more ornament was added to the faces of the spires,
particularly gabled dormers over the centres of the faces of the
towers, as in the southwest tower of Chartres Cathedral.
Additional vertical ornament, in the form of slender pinnacles
in pyramid shapes, were often placed around the spires, to
express the transition between the square base and the
octagonal spire.[4]

The spires of the late 13th century achieved great height; one Chartres Cathedral. The
example was Fribourg Cathedral in Switzerland, where the Flamboyant Gothic North Tower
gabled lantern and spire reached a height of 385 feet (117 (finished 1513) (left) and older
meters). In England, a tall needle spire was sometimes South Tower (1144–1150) (right)
constructed at the edge of tower, with pinnacles at the other
corners. The western spires of Lichfield Cathedral are an
example.[4]

Spires were particularly fragile in the wind, and a number of English Gothic spires collapsed;
notably that of Malmesbury Abbey (1180–1500); Lincoln Cathedral (which had been the tallest in
the world) 1349–1549; and Chichester Cathedral (1402–1861). The spire of Salisbury Cathedral,
completed in 1320 and 404 feet (123 meters) tall, without the tower, required the addition of
buttresses, arches and tie irons to keep it intact. Finally, in 1668 the architect Christopher Wren
designed reinforcing beams which halted the deformation of the structure.[5]

Openwork spires were a notable architectural innovation, beginning with the spire at Freiburg
Minster, in which the pierced stonework was held together by iron cramps. The openwork spire,
represented a radical but logical extension of the Gothic tendency toward a skeletal structure.[6]

Crown spires
Crown spires have a fully exposed structure of arches not unlike the arches of a medieval European
crown. The spire itself is supported by buttress structures.[1]

Needle-spires and Hertfordshire spikes

A needle-spire is a particularly tall and narrow spire emerging from a tower surrounded by a
parapet. In general, the term applies to considerably larger and more refined spires than the name
Hertfordshire spike.[1]

A Hertfordshire spike is a type of short spire, needle-spire, or flèche ringed with a parapet and
found on church-towers in the British Isles.[1]

Splay-foot
The roofs of splay-foot spires open out and flatten off at their base, creating eaves above the tower
supporting the spire.[1]
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Flèches
A flèche (French: flèche, lit. 'arrow'[7]) is name given to spires
in Gothic architecture: in French the word is applied to any
spire, but in English it has the technical meaning of a spirelet
or spike on the rooftop of a building.[1][2] In particular, the
spirelets often built atop the crossings of major churches in
mediaeval French Gothic architecture are called flèches.[2]

On the ridge of the roof on top of the crossing (the intersection

of the nave and the transepts) of a church, flèches were
typically light, delicate, timber-framed constructions with a
metallic sheath of lead or copper.[8] They are often richly
decorated with architectural and sculptural embellishments:
tracery, crockets, and miniature buttresses serve to adorn the
flèche.[8]

The most famous flèche was the Neo-Gothic 19th-century

Crown spire on the High Kirk,
design by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc for the Notre-Dame de Paris,
Edinburgh.[1]
100 feet (30 meters) tall and richly decorated with sculpture.
The original flèche of Notre-Dame was built in the 13th
century, and removed in 1786, shortly before the French
Revolution. The famous replacement by Viollet-le-Duc with an
abundance of sculpture was destroyed in the 2019 Notre-
Dame de Paris fire. It will be rebuilt in the same form.

Pinnacles
A pinnacle is a miniature spire that was used both as a
decorative and functional element. In early Gothic, as at
Notre-Dame de Paris, stone pinnacles were placed atop flying
buttresses, to give them additional weight and stability, and to
counterbalance the outward thrust from the rib vaults of the
nave. As an ornament, they were used to break up the
horizontal lines, such as parapets and the roofs of towers. In
later Gothic, they were sometimes often clustered together
into forests of vertical ornament.

Traditional types of spires

The flèche of Rouen Cathedral
Conical stone spires: These are usually found on circular (centre), (151 meters), the tallest
towers and turrets, usually of small diameter. flèche in France
Masonry spires: These are found on medieval and revival
churches and cathedrals, generally with towers that are
square in plan. While masonry spires on a tower of small plan may be pyramidal, spires on
towers of large plan are generally octagonal. The spire is supported on stone squinches which
span the corners of the tower, making an octagonal plan. The spire of Salisbury Cathedral is of
this type and is the tallest masonry spire in the world, remaining substantially intact since the
13th century. Other spires of this sort include the south spire of Chartres Cathedral, and the
spires of Norwich Cathedral, Chichester Cathedral and Oxford Cathedral.
Openwork spires: These spires are constructed of a network of stone tracery, which, being
considerably lighter than a masonry spire, can be built to greater heights. Many famous tall
spires are of this type, including the spires of Ulm Minster (the world's tallest church), Freiburg
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Minster, Strasbourg Cathedral, Vienna Cathedral, Prague

Cathedral, Burgos Cathedral and the twin spires of
Cologne Cathedral.
Complex spires: These are stone spires that combine
both masonry and openwork elements. Some such spires
were constructed in the Gothic style, such as the north
spire of Chartres Cathedral. They became increasingly
common in Baroque architecture, and are a feature of
Christopher Wren's churches.
Clad spires: These are constructed with a wooden frame,
often standing on a tower of brick or stone construction,
but also occurring on wooden towers in countries where
wooden buildings are prevalent. They are often clad in
metal, such as copper or lead. They may also be tiled or
shingled.

Clad spires can take a variety of shapes. These include:

The octagonal tower of Burgos
Pyramidal spires, which may be of low profile, Cathedral (1221–1260), with an
rising to a height not much greater than its width, array of pinnacles
or, more rarely, of high profile.
Rhenish helm: This is a four-sided tower topped
with a pyramidal roof. each of the four sides of the roof is rhomboid in form, with the
long diagonal running from the apex of roof to one of the corners of the supporting
tower; each side of the tower is thus topped with a gable from whose peak a ridge runs
to the apex of the roof.
Broach spires: These are octagonal spires sitting on a square tower, with a section of
spire rising from each corner of the tower, and bridging the spaces between the
corners and four of the sides.
Bell-shaped spires: These spires, sometimes square in plan, occur mostly in
Northern, Alpine and Eastern Europe, where they occur alternately with onion-shaped
domes.

Notable spires
Lincoln Cathedral's 525 foot (160 m) high medieval spire
on the crossing tower was the tallest building in the world
for 238 years (1311–1548) before its collapse. It was the
first building to be taller than the Great Pyramid of Giza
and nothing taller would be built until the Eiffel Tower was
finished in 1889.
Salisbury Cathedral's 404 foot (123 m) high spire on the
crossing tower has been the tallest church spire in the
British Isles since the collapse of Lincoln's crossing spire The spire of Burghley House (1555–
in 1548. 1587) is an example of a spire on
St Mary's Church, Stralsund's 495 foot (151 m) high spire non-religious building.
made it the tallest building in the world after the collapse of
Lincoln's crossing spire in 1548 until 1569, when Beauvais
Cathedral's tower exceeded it in height. Beauvais's tower collapsed in 1573, after which St
Mary's remained the tallest building until 1647, when the spire was destroyed by lightning and
subsequently replaced with a lower Baroque dome (excepting 1569–1573)
Cologne Cathedral's 515 foot (157 m) high spires were built 1248 and 1473, but not
completed, and again from 1842, still following faithfully the original plan, until their
completions in 1880. The architecture of the spires blends entirely with the tower, making them
difficult to separate. The combined tower-spires are 157 meters (515 feet) high.[9] The church
is the tallest cathedral anywhere and has the tallest pair of spires.
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St Martin's Church, Landshut, spire whose Brick Gothic tower was finished in 1507, makes it
the tallest brick-built church in the world, and the second tallest (unreinforced) brick building
anywhere.
The spire at Burghley House in England, built for Elizabeth I's Lord Chancellor in 1585 is an
example of a spire on a non-religious building.
The 123 metre spire of Antwerp Cathedral is the tallest ecclesiastical structure in the Low
Countries.
The 119 metre pair of spires of Uppsala Cathedral are the tallest in Scandinavia.
Ulm Minster, a Lutheran church in Germany, has the distinction of having the tallest church
tower in Europe, at 161.5 metres or 530 feet. The height was deliberately sought to make it
slightly higher than the Catholic Cologne Cathedral.
The Spire of Notre-Dame de Paris designed by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc was a famous flèche
that crowned the crossing ridge of Notre-Dame de Paris between 1859 and 2019.
The organic skeleton of Antoni Gaudi's spires at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona are a blend
of Gothic and Gaudi's particular style. Designed and begun by Gaudi in 1884, they are still
being completed in the early 21st century.

The Gothic spire of The Gothic spire of 19th century spires Neo-Gothic-
Ulm Minster Antwerp Cathedral of Cologne Modernist Sagrada
(1352–1521) Cathedral Família in Barcelona

19th century flèche Spire of St Martin's Gothic spires of

of Notre-Dame de Church, Landshut Burgos Cathedral.
Paris

Religious symbolism
In Gothic architecture, where the spire is most commonly used, and particularly in Gothic
cathedrals and churches it symbolised the heavenly aspirations of churches' builders, as well as
offering a visual spectacle of extreme height.[4] It also suggested, by its similarity to a spear point,
the power and strength of religion.[10]
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See also
Pinnacle
Flèche
Crooked spire
List of twisted spires
Gothic architecture
Gothic cathedrals and churches

References
1. Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan, eds. (2015), "spire" (https://www.oxfordreference.com/vie
w/10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001/acref-9780199674985-e-4392), A Dictionary of
Architecture and Landscape Architecture (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press,
doi:10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001/acref-9780199674985-e-4392 (https://doi.org/10.
1093%2Facref%2F9780199674985.001.0001%2Facref-9780199674985-e-4392), ISBN 978-0-
19-967498-5, retrieved 2020-05-27
2. Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan, eds. (2015), "flèche" (https://www.oxfordreference.com/vi
ew/10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001/acref-9780199674985-e-1827), A Dictionary of
Architecture and Landscape Architecture (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press,
doi:10.1093/acref/9780199674985.001.0001/acref-9780199674985-e-1827 (https://doi.org/10.
1093%2Facref%2F9780199674985.001.0001%2Facref-9780199674985-e-1827), ISBN 978-0-
19-967498-5, retrieved 2020-05-27
3. "Online Etymology Dictionary" (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=spire&searchmo
de=none). Etymonline.com. Retrieved 2012-09-09.
4. Encyclopædia Britannica on-line, "Spires" (retrieved May 13, 2020)
5. Ross, David. "Salisbury, Wiltshire" (https://www.britainexpress.com/Where_to_go_in_Britain/D
estination_Library/salisbury.htm). Britain Express. Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20190
514093550/https://www.britainexpress.com/Where_to_go_in_Britain/Destination_Library/salisb
ury.htm) from the original on 14 May 2019. Retrieved 2019-05-14.
6. Robert Bork, "Into Thin Air: France, Germany, and the Invention of the Openwork Spire" The
Art Bulletin 85.1 (March 2003, pp. 25–53), p 25.
7. "Definition of Spirelet" (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/spirelet).
collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 2020-05-21.
8. "Flèche | architecture" (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/209889/fleche).
Britannica.com. Retrieved 2017-12-14.
9. "UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Cologne Cathedral" (https://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&i
d_site=292). Whc.unesco.org. Retrieved 15 August 2010.
10. Robert Odell Bork, Great Spires: Skyscrapers of the New Jerusalem, 2003, explores the
complex layering of religious and political significance in spires.

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