York Guides

At the north-cast angle of the cloister, in the west wall of the south transept, are the traces of two large recesses, which held the cupboards in which books read in the cloister were kept. The northern of these cupboards was partly built up with masonry in the fifteenth century, as a moulded base course shows.

Next to the book cupboards, on the south, is a wide opening once fitted with double doors leading to a barrel-vaulted passage room. The west half of this room held the library of the monastery, while the east half, divided from it by a wooden partition, and entered from the south transept, served as a vestry. Here, as in other Cistercian houses, it has a wide doorway at its cast end, and outside this there seems to have been a wooden pentice set against the south wall of the transept.