There is a high parapet on the façade with the coat of arms of Professors George Murray Humphry and John Willis Clark.
On the Day of Daggers, Lafayette was away attempting to quell a disturbance caused by Santerre, a Jacobin and commander of the National Guard in St.Antoine, in which Santerre and a mob of about twelve hundred marched toward Vincennes, where they began to destroy part of the parapet and the dungeons that were holding prisoners from the recently fallen Bastille, with the supposed intention of massacring the prisoners.
The building's parapet roof is tiled with multicolored Mission style clay tiles, which were thought to pair well with skintled walls by architects of the era.
On 3 August 1915 between Cambrin and La Bassée, France, a German trench-mortar bomb landed on the side of the parapet of the communication trench in which Second Lieutenant Boyd-Rochfort was standing close to a small working party of his battalion.
Designed in the Romanesque style by Olle J. Lorehn, the two-story brick building was completed on January 1899 and features rusticated stone details, a five bay front with Central arched entry flanked by two apparatus bay entries and unique parapet details.
The principal east front, with crenallated parapet and two end turrets, faces towards St Peter's Parish Church and has a magnificent view across the River Taw to Bishops Tawton village and Codden Hill.
The 1936 building is modeled after the Chicago Water Tower, with octagonal buttresses, crenellated towers, and a parapet wall.
Leaping from an embrasure, Jasper recovered the flag, which he tied to a sponge staff (see the Cannon instruments section of the Cannon operation article) and replaced on the parapet, where he supported it until a permanent flag staff had been procured and installed.