A writer on the subject of the ancient Library of the cathedral priory of St. Mary, Worcester, is confronted by unusual difficulties, in the dearth of documents which throw light on it. No catalogue of the books is preserved of a date anterior to about 1650, and this is an incomplete and very roughly made one. The library has been moved more than once, and the architecture of some of the buildings which contain it has been altered or renewed at subsequent periods. If reliance therefore is placed on external evidence alone, the history of the library would be most meagre and uncertain. Fortunately a good portion of the library itself remains, and tells something of its own history. Moreover, from a close examination of the existing buildings, of the chisel marks and varieties of stone, the architectural history can be to some extent collected.

It is written in the fifth volume of the Minute Books of the Society that on Thursday, 1st May, 1746:

Mr. Birch brought an old draft in a Parchment Roll done in the year 1511 of all the Stone-Wells then at Clerkenwell. This Mr. Vertue was desired to take home and give some account to the Society the next meeting: the Roll is the property of Francis Godolphin, Esq.

By way of introduction to the subject I have the honour of bringing before you I will trace as briefly as possible the controversy as to the origin of those remarkable strongholds, found throughout the three kingdoms, of which the essential feature is a moated flat-topped mound. This was the “motte” of medieval French, the “mota” of mediaeval Latin.