ST. MARY S TOWER, TAUNTON. 143 



to have given rise to the tradition that it was formerly a 

 palace — what seems more probable than that this elabo- 

 rately decorated portion of the structure was deslgned for 

 Daubeney by his friend Bray ? Indeed the Windows, run^ 

 ning as they do from the base to the suminit of the walls, 

 the two stories being separated only by a rieh ornament of 

 shields, in the same continuous jamb, have a sort of 

 resemblance to the three sets of Windows in St. Mary's 

 Tower, and strengthens the supposition that it may have 

 been designed by the same genius. 



Another link in the chain : We find one more ancient 

 family in the neighbourhood in favour with the King ; for 

 if Sir Eeginald Bray "bore a rieh salt of gold" at the 

 christening of Prince Arthur, Sir Eichard Warre was 

 created a Knight of the Bath at his marriage, Bray being 

 still alive. This renders it likely that the Hestercombe 



tions, until the reign of Henry VII, when the stone-work was completed," 

 may we not fairly assume, seeing that the style is nearly half a Century 

 later than that named as its foundation, being essentially Tudor, abounding 

 both internally and externally with the arms and badges of the Seventh 

 Henry— may we not fairly assume that, though the foundation may have 

 been laid during the reign of Henry VI, and some small portion of the 

 walls built, that the original design may have been altered to the then pre- 

 vailing Florid Gothic ? It not only appears to me that this may have been 

 so, but I fancy I can detect such a resemblance, in parts, between this 

 building and that of the Abbey Chapel and the ceiling of St. George's, 

 Windsor, as may lead one to the conclusion that they were all the work of 

 the same master mind— the Tudor Bray, and that the ceiling which aston- 

 ishes the world may have been construeted by the architect of St. 

 Mary's Tower. That the roof and towers were designed in Henry 

 tbe Seventh's reign, we have proof from an indenture dated 4 Henry 

 VIII, a.D. 1512, " that the great stone roof of the chapel divided into 

 twelve arches, and built of Weldon stone, aecording to a plan signed by the 

 executors of Henry VII, was to be set up within three years, at the price 

 of £100 for each arch ;" while from another indenture, which is dated in 

 the same year, we find that £100 was the sum agreed to be paid for each of 

 the towers by which the exterior of the chapel is embellished. The peculiar 

 termination of theso towers, more than any other feature in the building, 

 resembling as they do the buttresses supporting the fiying arches of Henry 

 the Seventh's Chapel, Westm inster, induces me to believe that they are the 

 work of the same man, rather than of the same period. 



