Merton College was founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton. It has the best claim to be the earliest Oxford college and was started before any established idea of how a university college should work. As a result the layout of the college developed piecemeal. The Fellow’s Quad, which is medieval in layout, was built by master mason John Ackroyd in 1610 and was the first three-storey quadrangle in Oxford. The Tower of the Orders in the south range is a four-storey frontispiece of classical orders and gothic details. The gate to the garden through this tower was added about fifteen years later.