Wood shingle
thin, tapered pieces of wood primarily used to cover roofs and walls of buildings to protect them from the weather
Wood shingles are thin, tapered pieces of wood primarily used to cover roofs and walls of buildings to protect them from the weather. Historically shingles, also known as shakes, were split from straight grained, knot free bolts of wood. Modern shingles are mostly made by being cut which distinguishes them from shakes, which are made by being split out of a bolt.
Wooden shingle roofs were prevalent in the North American colonies (for example in the Cape-Cod-style house) or eastern Europe, while in central and southern Europe at the same time, thatch, slate and tile were the prevalent roofing materials. In rural Scandinavia, wood shingles were a common roofing material until the 1950s. Wood shingles are susceptible to fire and cost more than other types of shingle so they are not as common as in the past.
Distinctive shingle patterns exist in various regions created by the size, shape, and application method. Special treatments such as swept valleys, combed ridges, decorative butt ends, and decorative patterns impart a special character to each building. Wood shingles can also be shaped by steam bending to create a thatch-like appearance, with unique roof details and contours.
History
Historically, wooden shingles were usually thin (3⁄8 to 3⁄4 in or 10 to 19 mm), relatively narrow (3 to 8 in or 76 to 203 mm), of varying length (14 to 36 in or 360 to 910 mm), and almost always planed or knifed smooth.
“Wood shingle” enters the record as thin, tapered pieces of wood primarily used to cover roofs and walls of buildings to protect them from the weather. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Wood, shingle and thin can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q199388. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Wood shingle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.