Page:Kirby Muxloe Castle near Leicester (1917).djvu/23

14 Work goes on with roofing of towers and laying floors over the vault (of the gatehouse?) till November, when thatch is put on the towers and gatehouse for protection against the winter. The masons go on working through the winter, but the amount done is small in comparison with former years, and all through 1484 the work continues on this small scale, only £61 being spent in the whole year down to 6 December. Here the accounts end, and it is impossible to say whether anything more was done. The gatehouse was being thatched in September 1484, and this being only a temporary protection shows that it was still unfinished at this date.

The accounts are full of interesting details, technical and topographical, and would well repay printing in full. Freestone was nearly all quarried at Alton, but rough stone for foundations came from a number of places, as Bardon Hills, also called Barnhills and Baronhilles, Tiptree Hill, Ratby, Groby, Shawe, Steward Hey, and the Waste. Lime came from Barrow, sand from le Golet or Gullet, and lead from "Wortesworthe Bolles." Timber came from Loughborough Park, Bardon Park, Osbaston Wood, Sheepshed, Bradgate Park, Borough Spring, Crampes Hey, Colton Hey, Newbould, and the "new College of leye."