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Someone may want to factor this into the FTCL article. --Tagishsimon(talk)
The Francis Trigge Chained Library of St. Wulfram's Church, Grantham, Lincolnshire, is the oldest public library in England and still survives today. Set up in 1598, it was the first provincial town library in the country to come under the control of the local authority, beating Norwich library by 10 years. The library was formed from a donation of 300 books collected in Cambridge by Rev. Francis Trigge, who was mayor of Grantham and rector of Welbourn. He clearly did not want the books to become the private library of clerics and scholars, but they were not available to everyone as in the sense of today's public library. The door to the library over the south porch was kept locked if someone wanted to access it they would have had to apply to the alderman, the church's two vicars or to the schoolmaster to get a key.
Over the years the library was enlarged by donations. The philosopher Henry More, a former pupil of The King's School, presented copies of his works in the late 1600s. Of the books surviving about a quarter date from pre-1550 including a legal book printed in Venice in 1472. 83 still have their original chains.
