As you walk into the church where Shakespeare was baptised and buried you are greeted with a prayer:
Loving God, we pray for everyone who comes into this church today:
That all who seek you here may find you;
And all who find you may serve you day by day.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
There has been a church on this site since at least 713 when a Saxon monastery was built here. The present building dates from 1210, with the oldest sections being the tower, transepts and nave pillars. The north and south aisles were added in the 1300's and the Chancel in the late 1400's
William Shakespeare and his wife Anne are both buried in the Chancel area of the church, along with other members of the Shakespeare family. He was buried here in 1616 because he was a "lay rector". You can see a bust on the wall erected in 1623 by his widow and friends.
Close by are copies of the register entries for his baptism and burial and the original font where he was baptised. The chained bible dates from 1611 and would have been read from in this church during Shakespeare lifetime.
The stone high alters one of the very few pre-reformation stone alters still in use in England today. It was found buried underneath the floor where it had been hidden during one of the reformation purges in the 1500's when many statues, carvings and other church treasures were lost or destroyed.
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