Location of Guild Chapel of the Holy Cross in Warwickshire
The Guild Chapel of the Holy Cross, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire is a chapel of 13th-century origins. Founded by the Guild of the Holy Cross before 1269, it passed into the control of the town corporation in 1553, when the Guild was suppressed by Edward VI. The chapel stands on Church Street, opposite the site of William Shakespeare's home, New Place, and has historic connections to Shakespeare's family. The chapel was gifted an extensive series of wall-paintings by Hugh Clopton, an earlier owner of New Place, and John Shakespeare, Shakespeare's father, undertook their defacement in the later 1500s. The paintings have recently been conserved.
Clopton undertook a major expansion of the chapel before his death in 1496, constructing a new nave which was incomplete when he died. The chapel was restored in a thirty-year programme undertaken by Stephen Dykes Bower from 1954-1983 and is a Grade I listed building. Owned and maintained by the Stratford-upon-Avon Town Trust, the chapel is used for services by King Edward VI School.
History
The Guild of the Holy Cross was a medieval religious membership foundation and the guild in Stratford-upon-Avon became a powerful societal force.[2] Members paid fees to join and a range of services were provided, including a hospital and a school, the provision of a priest to pray for the dead, as well as support for the poor. Within the town, the guild constructed its guildhall on Church Street[3] and the adjacent chapel was built circa 1260.[4]
Clopton's wall-paintings depicted a cycle of images[5] showing, among others, the Doom, the Allegory of Death, the Life of Adam and St George Slaying the Dragon. They were covered over by John Shakespeare some time in the 1560s-1570s, acting as town chamberlain and in accordance with Elizabeth I's injunction of 1559 to remove "all signs of superstition and idolatry from places of worship".[6] John Shakespeare's contemporary record details his paying two shillings for "defasyng ymages in ye chapel".[7] The wall-paintings were rediscovered under limewash in 1804[8] and were recorded by the antiquarian and draughtsman Thomas Fisher.[9] A restoration project undertaken in 2016[10] won the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings John Betjeman award in 2017.[11]
A major programme of archaeological investigation, carried out by the Department of Archaeology at the University of York in the early 21st century and making innovative use of digital modelling,[12] described the chapel as "one of Europe's most important surviving late-medieval Guild Chapels".[13]
The 'Great Bell', a curfew bell cast in 1633, was renovated in 2018.[14]
Architecture and description
The chancel is 13th century, with the nave and tower dating from Hugh Clopton's rebuilding on c.1490.[15]
Stratford-upon-Avon, commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, 91 miles (146 km) north-west of London, 22 miles (35 km) south-east of Birmingham and 8 miles (13 km) south-west of Warwick. The town is the southernmost point of the Arden area at the northern extremity of the Cotswolds. In the 2021 census Stratford had a population of 30,495.
John Shakespeare was an English businessman and politician who was the father of William Shakespeare. Active in Stratford-upon-Avon, he was a glover and whittawer by trade. Shakespeare was elected to several municipal offices, serving as an alderman and culminating in a term as bailiff, the chief magistrate of the town council, and mayor of Stratford in 1568, before he fell on hard times for reasons unknown. His fortunes later revived and he was granted a coat of arms five years before his death, probably at the instigation and expense of his son, the actor and playwright.
Sir Hugh Clopton was a Lord Mayor of London, a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers and a benefactor of his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire.
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) is a Grade II* listed 1,040+ seat thrust stage theatre owned by the Royal Shakespeare Company dedicated to the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is located in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon – Shakespeare's birthplace – in the English Midlands, beside the River Avon. The building incorporates the smaller Swan Theatre. The Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres re-opened in November 2010 after undergoing a major renovation known as the Transformation Project.
New Place was William Shakespeare's final place of residence in Stratford-upon-Avon. He died there in 1616. The whole building was demolished in 1702 by Sir John Clopton, who replaced it with a modern-style house, also called New Place. This in turn was demolished by Francis Gastrell, vicar of Frodsham, Cheshire, in 1759. It was never rebuilt after the second demolition and only the foundations remain.
The Collegiate Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon, is a Grade I listed parish church of the Church of England in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. It is often known simply as Holy Trinity Church or as Shakespeare's Church, due to its fame as the place of baptism, marriage and burial of William Shakespeare. More than 200,000 tourists visit the church each year.
Stratford-on-Avon is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Manuela Perteghella of the Liberal Democrats. The constituency is in Warwickshire; as its name suggests, it is centred on the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, birthplace of William Shakespeare, but also takes in the surrounding areas, including the towns of Alcester and Henley-in-Arden.
The Clopton Bridge is a Late Medieval masonry arch bridge with 14 pointed arches, located in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, which spans the River Avon, crossing at the place where the river was forded in Saxon times, and which gave the town its name. The bridge is still in use carrying the A3400 road over the river, and is grade I listed.
Henley-in-Arden is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon District in Warwickshire, England. The town takes its last name from the former Forest of Arden. Henley is known for its variety of historic buildings, some of which date back to medieval times, and its wide variety of preserved architectural styles. The one-mile-long (1.6 km) High Street is a conservation area.
Wilmcote is a village, and since 2004 a separate civil parish, in the English county of Warwickshire, about 3 miles (5 km) north of Stratford-upon-Avon. Prior to 2004, it was part of the same parish as Aston Cantlow, and the 2001 population for the whole area was 1,670, reducing to 1,229 at the 2011 Census.
The Grammar School of King Edward VI at Stratford-upon-Avon is a grammar school and academy in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, traditionally for boys only. However, since September 2013 the school has admitted girls into the Sixth Form. It is almost certain that William Shakespeare attended this school, leading to the school widely being described as "Shakespeare's School".
Clopton House is a 17th-century country mansion near Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire, now converted into residential apartments. It is a Grade II* listed building.
Dr. Levi Fox OBE, DL, MA, FSA, FRHistS, FRSL, was the son of a Leicestershire smallholder. He became Archivist for the city of Coventry and then Director of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, and was a conservationist, local historian, and author.
Stretton-on-Fosse is a village in the Stratford-on-Avon District in Warwickshire, England. It is situated between the towns of Moreton-in-Marsh and Shipston-on-Stour. The village is situated along the ancient Fosse Way road which runs from Exeter in Devon to Lincoln in Lincolnshire. The road bypasses the village to the east and is now the modern-day A429 road. The village is close to the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire border. While the lower ground of the village is heavy clay the upper parts are composed of sand and shingle. During commercial extraction of sand important graves of the Roman-British and Anglo-Saxon periods were uncovered and interesting skeletons and personal belongings were unearthed. These burials were the result of internecine warfare between local tribal factions.
William Clopton (1538–1592) was a member of the English gentry who inherited New Place in Stratford upon Avon, and in 1563 sold it to William Bott.
Stratford's Historic Spine is the name given to a route in Stratford-upon-Avon along which many of the town's most important and historic buildings are sited, with many of the buildings connected to William Shakespeare. The Historic Spine was once the main route from the town centre to the parish church. It begins in Henley Street at Shakespeare's Birthplace and finishes in Old Town at The Holy Trinity Church and has buildings from the 14th up to the 20th centuries.
The Tramway Bridge is a grade II listed pedestrian bridge crossing the River Avon at Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England.
Stratford-upon-Avon Guildhall is a historic building in Church Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. It is a Grade I listed building. Dating from the early 15th century, the Guildhall was for centuries at the centre of life in Stratford, being used for assemblies, as a meeting place for the local council, and as a school building for the King Edward VI School. Most famously William Shakespeare almost certainly attended school here. The building was opened to the public in 2016, after being restored.
Stratford-upon-Avon Town Hall is a municipal building in Sheep Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. It is a Grade II* listed building.
The Guild of the Holy Cross was a medieval religious guild in Stratford-upon-Avon, which was created in 1269, and abolished in 1547. Throughout the period of its existence, the guild was a central institution of Stratford's civic and cultural life, which catered for the town's spiritual needs and fulfilled a range of political and social functions. A number of historical buildings associated with the guild still survive today.
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