green plaque · York

bowman shutters, York

Above may be seen a facsimile of the type of shutter which was used in medieval times to guard the bowman against a return flight of arrows. The Abbey wall which is 13th and 14th century is unique in that its battlements retain the grooves for these shutters which swing on trunnions the wooden guard after the bowman had fired his arrows in quick succession was swung down to protect him. The grooves do not exist anywhere else on the City walls and it is doubtful if there are any others in England except possibly at Alnwick.

Inscription drawn from imported open data, awaiting original TributeLegacy editorial.

Source: Open Plaques. Geographic data via OpenStreetMap.

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Data sources

Location records are drawn from open, licence-clean datasets, kept here with attribution and gratitude to the people who maintain them.

Open Plaques, dedicated to the public domain (CC0). See openplaques.org.
Wikidata, available under the CC0 1.0 Universal dedication.
Historic England, National Heritage List for England, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0. War memorial records are drawn from open community datasets (OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, NHLE) — never from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is excluded.

Editorial descriptions, photography and tribute links are original TributeLegacy work, layered on top of the open data.