] ] I would like to know, just what a gallery is in a great house.

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] I think the "hallway" scenario is probably more likely because it would do double duty as both a place to hang portraits and as a hall. Large windows on the outer wall would give plenty of lightk and doors along its inside wall would give access to rooms on the other side.

In reality The Gallery used in P&P2 is on the second floor of Sudbury Hall and overlooking the gardens to the back of the house. It's the length of at least four "ordinary rooms"(speaking of such a grand house). It takes up the lenght of the house (138 feet) and has got as many as nine (I feel quite like Mr Collins;])windows to the south, three of them bay windows.The one in the middle has even got a raised floor(Imagine that!).

In addition to these there are two more large windows, one to the east and one tho the west. It's a very bright and airy gallery, especially on a sunny day. There are no more than three doors on the inner wall, however: one leading to a minor flight of stairs, one to a corridor and the third, passing through a room formerly used as bedroom and, on to the Great Staircase we see in P&P2. I have seen houses where the gallery continues along another outer wall and there are plenty of rooms on the inside. Probably bedrooms facing some inner courtyard like the one at Lyme Park.