THE FREE GRAMMAR SCHOOL, or King Edward’s School, was founded on the property belonging to the Gild of the Holy Cross, taken possession of by Henry VIII., and restored to the town by Edward VI. in the shape of an educational endowment. The old hall used by the Gild stood on the site of the present school, and it is probable that it was used as a school until new buildings were erected in 1707. Of that edifice drawings are in existence, which show it to have been of two storeys, and forming three sides of a quadrangle, with a tower over the central and chief entrance, terminated by a cupola. The buildings were of brick, with stone dressings; the windows square-headed, of the heavy-sashed description used in the domestic architecture of the time. A high balustraded parapet hid the roofs from sight. The School was pulled down in 1832, and the present noble building erected on its site. The style is that of the latter half of the fifteenth century, commonly called Tudor, and although erected so soon after the revival of Gothic architecture, it has scarcely been excelled for boldness and propriety of design or for purity of detail. It forms on plan a nearly equal-sided square. The chief front, facing New Street, has slightly projecting wings, in which are fine Oriel windows, of two stories, the intermediate length being divided by boldly projecting buttresses, terminated by crocketed pinnacles, into nine bays of two stories in height. The entrance is in the middle bay, through a handsome moulded and carved doorway, to a vestibule finely groined in stone. The upper floor of the central part of the front is now occupied by the Girls’ School, and is lighted by grand traceried and transomed windows of three lights. The south front, looking towards the railway station, contains the Boys’ School, and is of a simpler, but quite as good a design as the main elevation. The two principal schoolrooms are very fine, with open timber roofs. The architect was Sir Charles Barry, and a striking similarity between the details of this building and of those of the Houses of Parliament of about this time may be observed. CHRIST CHURCH.--Christ Church, consecrated in 1813, stands at the junction of New Street with Ann Street, and occupies the most prominent and the best position in the town, but is quite unworthy of its site. It is in the quasi-Classic style prevailing in the time of George III., with a lofty but ill-proportioned tower and spire, and a western portico of the Roman Doric order. ST. PETER’S.--Several of the churches succeeding the last were built by the well known Thomas Rickman; among these were St. Peter’s in Dale End, a heavy, uninteresting building, with a Grecian Doric portico, surmounted by a “Temple-of-the-Winds”-like structure as a steeple.