Does anyone know why my new house has a rounded corner?

[Franc-1957]

 

[Franc-1957]

I'd love to know the history of the home, it's an end of terrace on "The Street". The conveyancing has not brought up the date it was bulit but I'm guessing late 1890's to early 1900's? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[CliffordPope]

In traditional architecture it's called a pendentive, as opposed to a squinch which goes on the inside corner. The purpose in each case is to support the structure above by transmitting load to the walls.
I suspect that in this case it is simply an elegant and unusual way of smoothing the corner of a frequently walked pathway so that you don't bump on the projecting corner,
You sometimes see one in a town with narrow streets trying to cope with modern traffic. Owners get so tired of constantly repairing vulnerable parts of their buildings hit by turning lorries that they just chop the corner off and make a more elegant virtue out of necessity.

 

[Gothichome]

Pendentive and squinch you say, well I have to bring those two words into a sentence at my next cocktail party, that’ll impress the girls.

 

[Franc-1957]

Thank you for the insight Clifford!
I must agree with Gothichome, those two words are new to me as well!