The windows looking out into the street are comparatively modern, those originally lighting the room being on the opposite side, and at the south end, which latter window is now blocked up. In the lower part of the wall are holes, in which the beams supporting the dais or stage on which the plays were performed were placed. The Armoury, or “greeting–room,” which is reached from the hall, has good panelling of the Jacobean period, and the Royal arms over the fireplace were set up in 1660 as a memento of the public rejoicing which followed the Restoration. The Muniment Room, reached by a winding staircase, is a small chamber, in which a large number of interesting documents of the sixteenth century were discovered some years ago. Above the armoury is the Council Chamber, an interesting room now used as the school library. In it is a massive oak table dating from Jacobean times.
The famous Grammar School, founded in Henry VI.’s reign by Thomas Jolyffe, a priest who was a native of Stratford, is above the Guild Hall. As was the case with so many other institutions of a like character, the dissolution of the Monasteries and Foundations saw its funds “appropriated” by the Crown, and this remained the case until the accession of Edward VI., who in 1553 granted a Charter of Incorporation to the principal inhabitants, and with it restored the property formerly belonging to the Guild. The mathematical room and the Latin room are both immediately above the Guild Hall, and in both there are high open–timbered roofs, with remarkably stout tie–beams. It was at the lower end of the Latin room that Shakespeare’s traditional desk used to stand, which was formerly the second master’s desk. Aubrey states that the poet was for a short period a schoolmaster in the country, and, if this is correct, it is, of course, quite possible that he filled the office of junior master at the Grammar School, and used the desk associated by tradition with him.
The almshouses, which were formerly for twenty–four poor members of the Guild, and nowadays have twelve male and twelve female inmates, adjoin the school—a row of picturesque half–timbered houses.
Close to the river and not far from the Memorial Theatre stands Stratford Church of the Holy Trinity, ideally situated, almost embosomed in trees, and approached on the north side by a beautiful avenue of limes. The building, which was a Collegiate Church from the reign of Edward III. to the Dissolution, is a cruciform edifice consisting of a nave with aisles, a chancel, transepts, and a central tower with an elegant octagonal spire, which seems to dominate the whole town when viewed from a little distance. The building is of mixed styles of architecture, the oldest portions of which are the Early English tower (the present spire was erected in 1764, replacing the ancient wooden one); nave of the same period, though possessing a Decorated clerestory; and the north aisle, built about the beginning of the thirteenth century. The transepts, which were very considerably restored in the reign of Henry VII. by the executors of Sir Hugh Clopton, probably date from the beginning of the thirteenth century.
The Decorated south aisle was erected in 1332 by John de Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, and he it was who founded at its east end a chapel dedicated to Sir Thomas of Canterbury.
The chancel is Perpendicular, and was built by Dr. Thomas Balshall at the end of the fifteenth century. The north porch is Perpendicular, and the clerestory of the nave was erected late in the fifteenth century, replacing an earlier one of about the same period as the arcade.
The north aisle had a chapel at its eastern end, called formerly the Chapel of Our Lady the Virgin, but now commonly known as the Clopton Chapel, on account of the number of tombs belonging to that family which it contains.
The great point of interest, of course, is the monument of Shakespeare, which is on the north wall of the chancel, and consists of a bust of the poet under an arch, on either side of which are two Corinthian columns of black marble supporting an entablature bearing his arms, with a seated cherub on either side, and a skull crowning the top. On a panel beneath the bust, which was made by Gerard Johnson, a tomb–maker, who lived near the church now known as St. Saviour’s, Southwark, and was erected prior to 1623, are the following inscriptions:—
Judicio Pylium, Genio Socratem, Arte Maronem,
Terra Tegit, Populus Moeret, Olympus Habet.
Stay, passenger, why goest thou so fast?
Read, if thou canst, whom envious Death hath plast
Within this monument; Shakespeare, with whome
Quicke Natur dide; whose name doth deck ys tombe,
Far more than cost; sith all yt he hath writt,
Leaves living art, but page to serve his witt.