Guild Chapel, Stratford upon Avon

Overlooking the site of New Place where William Shakespeare lived in retirement and died, the Guild Chapel is one of Stratford-upon-Avon’s most precious buildings. It was established on its current foundations almost 900 years ago by the Guild of the Holy Cross, when Bishop Godfrey Giffard of Worcester granted a licence to the brethren of the Guild to build a chapel and to found a hospital for the poor priests in the diocese. The present fabric of the chancel of the Chapel incorporates portions of the original building, but the nave and tower were added in the fifteenth century. Following the suppression of the Guild during the Reformation, the Chapel was granted by King Edward VI in 1553 to the Bailiff and Corporation of Stratford. The Chapel is celebrated for its remarkable acoustic, exceptional organ (build and installed in 2014) and an extraordinary collection of medieval wall paintings, among the rarest and most perfectly preserved in Europe. These deathly depictions of the saints, the gates of heaven and hell, and other popular reflections on the afterlife were banned following by the Reformation, when Elizabeth I passed an Injunction in 1559 demanding the “removal of all signs of superstition and idolatry from places of worship”. This was received by the Corporation of Stratford and John Shakespeare, father of the playwright and the Corporation’s Chamberlain. Fortunately, rather than destroying the paintings, Shakespeare Senior covered them with limewash – causing their protection and preservation.