jan 1, 1422 - alure

Description:

An ‘alure’ was a walkway behind the parapets of a castle. In 1260 the inquisition into the state of Scarborough Castle reported that ‘the battlements and allours <i>(allure</i>)’ had deteriorated (YRS12/72). The term was used also in churches, and an early entry in the fabric rolls of Ripon records a sum paid in 1379-80 for repairing windows in the clerestory: <i>vij panellis vitreis … in alura superiore emendandis</i> (SS81/101). Similarly: 1394 <i>in alura inter fontem et introitum chori</i>, York (SS4/197). Occasionally the ‘aluring’ might refer to the parapets of a bridge, although examples of its use in any context are rare. The contract for Catterick Bridge in 1422 required it to <i>have a tabelle of hewyn stane under the alluring </i>(NRQS3/33-6) and it may be no coincidence that the same word has been found in the masons’ contract for Catterick church ten years earlier (NRQS3/34n).

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