Handed-ness of doors

[sunnybob]

kind of hijacked the thread (sorry) but do you remember the carry on film about rome?
Two great moments, the first and best was Kenneth Williams line,"Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it infamy!"
The second was Sid James marching troops along calling "sinister, dexter, sinister, dexter" =D> =D> =D>
i know, little minds and all that. :roll:

 

[Tasky]

Back in the day... Front doors opened inwards and the hinge was on the left because the owner then had his sword or pistol in his right hand ready to kill whoever was knocking if he so deemed it necessary.
Similarly, internal doors were handed so that an intruder had his right hand occupied with the handle, putting him at a disadvantage to the rooms occupants.

This was dismissed in George Silver's treatises of 1598 wherein and whereupon he reminded readers that, for centuries, the simple right-handed way to overcome such a situation was to advance under a Hanging Guardant, thus wide-spacing the owner's own sword and keeping your own space narrow, occupying the inside line and using the door to barge said owner aside.

Done right, you can also apply an arm lock and take the owner hostage before you're even through the doorway. Of course, this was all adapted straight from arrest techniques of the King's Guard, but it works just the same for an armed intruder intent on doing you some mischief.

 

[AndyT]

I had to check, but it seems that Tasky isn't making this up... yet again I'm impressed by the range of specialist expertise to be found on this forum!

 

[Just4Fun]

The logic with front doors, which always open in ...

This is an interesting one for me. Every front door I have seen in the UK opens inwards. Every front door I have seen here in Finland opens outwards. I have never heard a convincing explanation for this difference.

 

[AndyT]

The logic with front doors, which always open in ...

This is an interesting one for me. Every front door I have seen in the UK opens inwards. Every front door I have seen here in Finland opens outwards. I have never heard a convincing explanation for this difference.

Presumably, Finns are all sensible enough to ring the bell, then take a step back to avoid being hit by the door when the owner opens it towards them. Over here, we can't make rash assumptions like that!

 

[lurker]

The logic with front doors, which always open in ...

This is an interesting one for me. Every front door I have seen in the UK opens inwards. Every front door I have seen here in Finland opens outwards. I have never heard a convincing explanation for this difference.

Watching Scandi cop shows I wondered about this too.
Assumed it's to do with pushing snow away from the threshold originally and now has become a done thing even in blocks of flats.