newel

newel, upright post rising at the foot of a stairway, at its landings, or at its top. These posts usually serve as anchors for handrails. Often the stringboards, which cover and connect the ends of the steps, are framed into the newels. Made of the same substance as the stairway itself—wood, stone, or metal—the newel may be simple and functional, as in most contemporary examples, or highly ornamental, as in the Elizabethan or Jacobean styles.

Originally, a newel was the central post of a winding or circular stairway. If such a stairway has no central post, it is said to be of hollow-newel construction. In Gothic architecture a post used to support a vaulted-arch roof was sometimes called a newel.