Finial

Today's the day ............................ to define

finial (fɪnɪəl) n. an ornament on top of a spire, gable etc, esp. in the form of a foliated fleur-de-lis ....

I think this is a finial.

It's an enormous great thing - maybe a couple of feet high - and it sits at the end of one of the gables on the house next door. The house was built at the end of the 19th century for one Joseph Jordan, a Kendal corn merchant. It shows all the Victorian skill that would have been required in those days to produce the complex roof shapes that defined the period - when an imposing finial would have been a standard addition.

And I have to say that it still looked rather magnificent in today's bright sunshine .................