t Durham, built by Prior Wessyngton about
1446.]

At Gloucester the library is in a similar position, but the date of its
construction is uncertain. It has been described as follows by Mr Hope:

The library is an interesting room of fourteenth century
date, retaining much of its original open roof. The
north side has eleven windows, each of two square-headed
lights and perfectly plain.... [There are no windows on
the south side.] The large end windows are late
perpendicular, each of seven lights with a transom.
There are other alterations, such as the beautiful
wooden corbels from which the roof springs, which are
probably contemporary with the work of the cloister when
the western stair to the library was built, and the room
altered.

At Winchester a precisely similar position was selected between the
Chapter-House and the south transept, above a passage leading from the
cloister to the ground at the south-east end of the church.

At the Benedictine House of S. Albans the library was begun in 1452 by
John Whethamstede, Prior, and completed in the following year at the cost
of L150[228]--a sum which represents about L2000 at the present day--but
the position has not been recorded.

At Worcester, also Benedictine, it seems probable that the library
occupied from very early times the long, narrow room over the south aisle
of the nave to which it was restored in 1866. This room, which extends
from the transept to the west end of the church, is 130 ft. 7 in. long, 19
ft. 6 in. wide, and 8 ft. 6 in. high on the south side. It is lighted by
twelve windows, eleven of which are of two lights each, and that nearest
to the transept of three lights. The room is approached by a circular
stone staircase at the south-west angle of the cathedral, access to which
is from the outside only[229].

At Bury S. Edmund's abbat William Curteys (1429-45) built a library, on an
unknown site: but his work is worth commemorating, as another instance of
the great fifteenth century movement in monasteries for providing special
rooms to contain books.

At S. Victor, Paris, an Augustinian House, the library was built between
1501 and 1508, I believe over the sacristy; at Groenendaal, near Brussels,
also Augustinian, it was built over the whole length of the north cloister
(a distance of 175 feet), so that its windows faced the south.

[Illustration: Fig. 32. Library of the Grey Friars House, London