bargeboard

Gothic Revival style bargeboard on the New York Yacht Club House (currently in Mystic, Conn., U.S.), by Alexander Jackson Davis, 1846

bargeboard, exposed board or false rafter running underneath the slopes of a projecting gable roof. Such a board is often richly decorated with carved, cut-out, or painted designs and patterns, particularly in late medieval Europe, in Tudor England, and in 19th-century Gothic Revival architecture in England and the United States.