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The Sneakiest Building Trick of the Middle Ages In the Middle Ages, in many towns in England and France, the upper floors of houses stuck out over the street. On some streets, the roofs of houses facing each other almost touched. The starting point of the technique called “jettying” in architecture was the biggest building trick of the Middle Ages. At that time, cities were surrounded by walls, so there was no land left inside, and land prices had shot up. Instead of buying land, clever builders found a way to gain square footage for free. Keeping the ground floor of the house narrow and stretching the wooden beams out toward the street to make the floors wider in the air. Each floor stuck out a little more than the one below it. By taking over public space in the air, they doubled the size of their houses. On top of that, these overhangs balanced the center of weight and made the building stronger, and they protected the ground floor from rain. Because shorter beams could be used, it was also less of a problem to find long trees. It was a brilliant piece of architectural thinking that both gained space and solved the structure. Still, historians are not sure exactly how the technique began. One of the most famous examples is the Shambles street in the city of York, England. Some of the buildings here date back to the 1300s. The street is so narrow that in some places you can touch the houses on both sides by stretching out your arms. In London too, after the Great Fire of 1666, overhanging floors were banned in 1667. The houses facing each other were so close that the fire could easily jump from one house to the next.