Stratford Almshouses and Guild Chapel
by Terri Waters
Title
Stratford Almshouses and Guild Chapel
Artist
Terri Waters
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
The town's famous row of Almshouses in Church Street, Stratford upon Avon, England, UK were founded at the beginning of the 15th century by Edward VI and the Guild of the Holy Cross for twenty-four poor and elderly local men and women.
They stand sandwiched between the Grammar School and the Guild Chapel, within view of The Falcon Inn and are one of the finest medieval sets of Almhouses in the country. Originally they had a thatched roof, but following the fires that consumed large areas of Stratford in the 16th century, an edict was made forbidding the use of thatch. These, like many other buildings were later tiled.
King Edward's Grammar School buildings, where the boy Shakespeare was educated, adjoin the Chapel of the Holy Cross. The Grammar School was founded in 1482 by Thomas Jolliffee (sic), a Stratford man, and refounded by the King in 1553.
There has been an educational facility at the current site of the school since at least the early thirteenth century. A schoolroom, schoolhouse and payment of £20 per annum for a master was one of the provisions of King Edward VI's charter which established Stratford-upon-Avon as a borough in June, 1553. The Guild of the Holy Cross, originally set up to employ a priest to pray for the souls of its members, developed into a fraternity of well-to-do local people who played a significant part in governing the town. The Guild was granted many properties in and around Stratford and some of the rental income generated was used to fund welfare facilities for its members such as the employment of a schoolmaster and the building of almshouses.
The original purpose of the Chapel was to provide a refuge for poor priests but this was overturned when the Guild was suppressed in 1547.
The Guild Chapel is one of Stratford's best-known buildings. Situated on the corner of Chapel Lane and Church Street, it overlooks the site of New Place, Shakespeare's Stratford home, in which he died, in April 1616. In the 1490's, Hugh Clopton, a native of the town who had made his fortune as a mercer in London, left money in his will for major rebuilding work on the chapel, represented today by the nave, tower and porch. At the same time the interior was lavishly decorated with wall-paintings, substantial traces of which remain, notably the Doom over the chancel arch. The Chapel is still used by the boys of the Edward VI Grammar School.
These institutions were suppressed at the Reformation by Henry VIII and their property confiscated by the Crown. This brought to an end the 'welfare provision' they had supplied and caused a breakdown in local government. To meet this crisis in 1553 the townspeople of Stratford petitioned Edward VI for a charter and on 25 June, just nine days before his death at the age of sixteen, Edward granted it.
The Royal Charter that Edward granted established the first Stratford Corporation and gave to it much of the property of the former Guild and College with specific responsibilities to provide a school, maintain the almshouses and pay the vicar.
The Almshouses are in a good state of repair following major renovation project during the mid-1980s.
Uploaded
February 23rd, 2013
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