1. Mil. (See quot. 1876.)
1755. R. Rogers, Jrnls. (1769), 5. I embarked … with a party of thirty men, in four battoes, mounted with two wall-pieces each.
1774. Ann. Reg., 244. We … at proper intervals kept firing our wall-pieces, as signals to the cutter.
1798. Hull Advertiser, 29 Sept., 1/4. The vessel … mounting twelve eighteen pounders … twelve long wall-pieces, and four swivels.
1804. Naval Chron., XII. 381. On the taffrel were two large wall-pieces,… loaded … with musket balls.
1826. Scott, Woodst., xvii. The malignants shooting their wall-pieces at us, had so much the advantage, that [etc.].
1860. J. Hewitt, Anc. Armour, III. 748. The various fire-arms in use at the close of this [17th] century are enumerated … by St.-Remy. There were wall-pieces (mousquets de rempart), both match and flint lock:… the match-lock musquet [etc.].
1876. Voyle & Stevenson, Milit. Dict. (ed. 3), Wall-piece, an enlarged firelock or firearm mounted on a swivel, and placed on the walls of a fort or other fortified place. It may be said to be obsolete, though sometimes issued in India to an expedition proceeding on service.
1884. Milit. Engin., I. II. 115. Machine guns and wall-pieces (the latter being of great advantage when the besieger has to resort to sapping) should also form part of the armament.
2. Arch. A pendant or pendant-post.
1849. R. & J. A. Brandon, Open Timber Roofs, 26. The wall-piece is tenoned into the underside of the principal rafter.
1880. Archæol. Cant. XIII. 435. The stone corbels which support the wall-pieces.
