TributeLegacy
Create a tribute page
Back to map All in England

plaque · England

William Shakespeare

Photograph at the William Shakespeare plaque

The Guildhall and Grammar School The Guildhall was built in 1417-20 as the headquarters of the Guild of the Holy Cross. In 1553 following the suppression of the Guild, the building was granted to the newly-formed Stratford Corporation by Edward VI. It served as the council's meeting place for the next 300 years, including the year 1568-9 when William Shakespeare's father, John, served as Balliff. The Guild's school, re-founded as The Kyng's Newe Scole in 1553, occupied part of the upper floor from the 1560s and it was here that William Shakespeare was eduated. In the late 1500s travelling players performed regularly in the Guildhall providing Shakespeare with his first experience of professional theatre. The Guildhall continues to be used for teaching by King Edward VI School.

Inscription drawn from imported open data, awaiting original TributeLegacy editorial.

Source: Open Plaques. Geographic data via OpenStreetMap.

Nearby locations in England

Browse all memorials in England

Data sources

Location records are drawn from open, licence-clean datasets, kept here with attribution and gratitude to the people who maintain them.

  • Open Plaques, dedicated to the public domain (CC0). See openplaques.org.
  • Wikidata, available under the CC0 1.0 Universal dedication.
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence.
  • Historic England, National Heritage List for England, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0. War memorial records are drawn from open community datasets (OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, NHLE) — never from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, which is excluded.

Editorial descriptions, photography and tribute links are original TributeLegacy work, layered on top of the open data.

Directions to here