purchased to secure the various doors. A main workforce of 19 stonemasons, up to 10 carpenters and other specialised tradesmen worked on the site, and in July 1366, a team of 23 labourers dug out the new moat over the course of a month. The tower was constructed in the secluded south-west corner of the Palace of Westminster, overlooking the king's garden in the Privy Palace, the most private part of Westminster. The tower was positioned so as not to encroach on the existing palace, but this meant it was built on top of land owned by the neighbouring Westminster Abbey. It took six years for the abbey to convince the king to agree to compensate for them for this annexation. William Usshborne, one of Edward's officials, was blamed for this and, when he later choked to death while eating a fish from a pond in the palace, the monks argued that this was divine justice for his role in the affair. The tower was linked to the external walls of the palace, and further secured by its moat, which was connected to the River Thames by a channel. The top of its walls were crenelated, and in order to prevent potential intruders there were no windows on the outside of the tower at the ground floor level. The keeper would have worked from the first floor, and Edward's treasure itself was kept on the second floor, in locked chests. Later medieval use The Jewel Tower continued to be used by Edward's successors for storing treasure and personal possessions, until 1512, when a fire in Westminster Palace forced the royal court to relocate to Whitehall, along with the jewels and plate from the tower. The king, Henry VIII, did not return to Westminster and instead built a new palace at Whitehall, but he continued to use the tower, then called the "Tholde Juelhous" ("the old Jewel House") for storing his wider household effects, including expensive cloths, linens, royal chess sets and walking sticks, but these appear to have been removed from the tower after his death. The Jewel Tower diminished in importance; probably during the 16th century, the palace walls on either side of the building were demolished, and part of the moat was filled in during 1551. By the 1590s, the tower had begun to be used both for the storage of the Lords' records and as a house