ST. MARY'S TOWER, TAUNTON. 145 



in the palace, with whom he walked in ample form to the 

 east end of Westminster Abbey, and levelled the footstone 

 of his famous chapel on June 24th, 1502 ; that the King 

 likewise employed Grand Worden Bray to raise the middle 

 chapel of Windsor, and to rebuild the palace of Sheen- 

 upon-Thames, which the King called Richmond ; and to 

 enlarge the old palace of Greenwich, calling it Placentia, 

 where he built a pretty box, called 'The Queen's House.'" 

 He is likewise supposed to have built the chancel of the 

 Abbey Church of Great Malvern, where, in the east win- 

 dow, his figure is introduced, with that of Prince Arthur, 

 kneeling. 



It seems probable that Bray may have done little more 

 than furnished the plans and elevation of St. Mary's Tower, 

 and that the builders were driven to an economic method of 

 construction in carrying out the grand design, which may 

 account for the loose way in which some portions of the 

 building seem to have been put together, and the inaccu- 

 racies which occur in the setting the buttresses, the mea- 

 surements of the belfry windows, which differ slightly in 

 width the one from the other in the same story, and in the 

 several Chambers of the tower, which are none of them 

 quite square. As regards the architectural merits of the 

 building, a professional member of our Society teils us 

 " that for height and magnificence it may claim nearly, if 

 not quite, the first rank in the country ;" but then, he 

 adds, " it sins against the first law of tower building, 

 which should be a gradual increase of lightness and deco- 

 ration towards the top, the lower part being piain and 

 massive ; that having double windows nearly as large as 

 those in the belfry stage in the two stories beneath, this 

 progressive diminution of massiveness is quite lost, and 

 that it is top heavy." Another learned member teils us 



