Editing Sherborne Abbey (section)

=== Guesten hall ===
This was in the west cloister range of the monastery. The ground floor was the cellarer's store room and outer parlour.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Sherborne School Buildings 1500–2000|journal=Sherborne School Archives}}</ref> Originally it had no windows but facsimiles of windows in Boxgrove Abbey were added. On the first floor was the guesten hall (13th century with 15th century roof and windows).<ref>{{Cite journal|title=School Library|journal=Monastic Sherborne │Sherborne School Archives}}</ref> The three roof bays to the north are not as ornate as the remaining six, which suggests that, at a time, the room may have been either divided into two by partition, or there could have been a gallery – possibly a minstrel gallery or perhaps to separate different classes of guest.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal|last=Gourlay|first=A.B.|date=1971|title=The Library|journal=A History of Sherborne School|pages=275}}</ref>

In the south wall are the remains of the east face of the west wall of the Saxon Abbey (10th–11th century plinth, with 13th century work on top). Behind this is a late 14th century stone spiral staircase that originally led to the abbot's private chapel on the upper floor of the south cloister range.<ref name=":11">{{Cite journal|title=Beckett Room|journal=Monastic Sherborne │Sherborne School Archives}}</ref>

An archaeological dig in 1967 revealed a pottery kiln built into the west wall, and from 1740 the main body of the building was used as a silk mill.<ref name=":11" />

It is now used as the Sherborne School Library building.

Note: There is no definite evidence that this room was used as a 'guesten hall', though in Benedictine monasteries it was not unusual to have a room such as this above a cellarium on the west side of the cloisters. Others have suggested that it may have been a misericorde (the room in which some monastic rules were relaxed, especially fasting) where more substantial food was supplied than in the refectory. A room such as this might have had a buttery, which can explain the less ornate section of roof. It has also been suggested that it could have been a domus conversorum ('house of the converts'. Until 1280, people who converted from Judaism to Christianity forfeited their possessions to the Crown), but there is little to suggest that that such members were ever numerous enough to justify such a large room, nor are there any traces of separate cells.<ref name=":10" />