What's a widow's walk?

Question

I keep reading fictional books that have a Victorian era house with a "widow's walk". Anyone know what it is? Thanks!

Answer 1

A widow's walk is a flat area at the peak of a roof that has a railing - a porch on top of the house, for lack of a better description. In coastal areas, sea captains' wives would supposedly watch the horizon for their returning husband's ships from that high vantage point. Many widow's walks have no access points and are strictly decorative.

Answer 2

It is an area on the roof of victorian houses, that ususaly has a rail round it It is where the wives would wait for their husbands to come home. Like a look out spot, so the could see out to sea for the ships to come home. Named a widow's walk because the widows usualy sat there waiting to no avail for there dead spouse.

Answer 3

A widow's walk is a railed rooftop platform, typically on a coastal house, originally designed to observe vessels at sea. The name comes from the wives of mariners who would watch for their spouses to return; in some instances, the ocean took the lives of the mariners, leaving the women as widows.

Answer 4

A widow's walk was a porch on the roof of a sea captain's house. When the ship was due to be back in port, his wife would scan the horizon, usually with a telescope, for sign of the ship. If the ship's flags were at half-mast, it meant the captain had died at sea, so she was a widow.

Answer 5

Well, here in San Diego there's are a few homes build around the turn of the century with widow walks. The homes belonged to fishermen, commonly the captain of a fishing boat here (tuna was a big fishing industry here once).
The widow walk faced the sea, and when her captain goes out on a voyage, she would stay in that room (widow walk) and gazes out to sea to see if his ship comes in.
You see, back in the old days, fishing boats took a high mortality rate because of storms and unseen coral reefs and such. Many ships never came home.

Answer 6

A widows walk is the porch type walkway on the second story of a house, it is a very slim walkway. There is one in the movie "The House of Sand and Fog".

Answer 7

picture a small wrap around deck at the top or peek of the house...it's called that because the "ole wives tale" is that when men would go out to sea the wives would go up there to look out over the waters to look for their husbands.......

i live in a small town on the cape fear river, 20 of the water front houses here have them......

Answer 8

I think it is narrow like a cats walk but actually attached to a wall on one side so sort of like a balcony. I'm not 100% sure, I just watched a movie a long time ago that had one in it.