The town hall of S. Mary, in which not only the guild feasts were held, but municipal business[148] was transacted, and the town chest, as well as the guild plate,[149] stored, tells by its name of its connection with S. Mary's brotherhood. The vaulting of the entrance porch of this building still bears on its central boss a carving which represents the coronation of the Virgin; another of the porch carvings--now weather-worn--recalled the Annunciation, and a scene on the famous tapestry within the hall, the Assumption,[150] so that the guild brethren, could be everywhere reminded of the scenes in the life of their chief patroness. No church, however, recalls the Virgin's name, though materials from an unfinished building, which should have borne that dedication, were transported from Cheylesmore to Bablake, where the stately, early Perpendicular church of S. John the Baptist was rising on ground granted by Queen Isabel in 1342 to the fraternity called after that saint.[151] Both S. John the Baptist's guild and S. Catherine's--the latter connected with S. Catherine's chapel in S. John's Hospital,[152] coalesced between 1364-5 with the guild merchant, to be absorbed later by the all-embracing Trinity fraternity. This fusion of the guilds, which had certainly taken place informally before 1384,[153] was ratified by patent in 1392,[154] when the united revenues were increased to the amount of £86, 13s. 4d. a year. The completion of S. John's church became the especial care of the Trinity guild, and the dues taken at the Drapery, where cloth was sold, were devoted to that purpose, while a college of priests, whose number was in 1393 increased to nine, officiated at this church, and lived on the bounty of the brotherhood.[155] [Illustration: SMITHFORD STREET] The priests of the merchant guild, as was meet, occupied from the beginning the most honourable place of all. They sang their "solemn antiphonies" in the lady-chapel of S. Michael's, the great parish church of the Earl's-half, a practice which was still continued after the title of the guild became merged in the society of the Trinity;[156] while the guild of the Corpus Christi, composed, it would seem, of the prior's tenants, occupied the corresponding chapel in the parish church of the Trinity.[157]