Campaign launched to save Shakespeare's church
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, England (AP) — Adopt a gargoyle. Sponsor a spire.Donating money could help to save the 800-year-old church where William Shakespeare was baptised and where he lies buried.
Officials of Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon are urgently calling for $3.25 million (US$6.3 million) to repair a cracked spire, broken windows and eroding bricks — and to address the effects of years of dry rot and death watch beetle.
“It’s absolutely desperate,” said Josephine Walker of the Friends of Shakespeare’s Church, which is in charge of fundraising. “It’s raining, and as we speak, rain is pouring in through the clerestory windows.”
It is a common story in the parishes of England, where hundreds of medieval churches need care. The Church of England estimates that $350 million (US$680 million worth of repairs are under way or urgently needed.
The Friends of Shakespeare’s Church already has an American fundraising arm — but church officials are concerned by the drop in Britain’s tourist numbers following the September 11, 2001, attacks and more recent terrorism alerts.
Catherine Penn, one of the trustees of the Friends, said work had been done to repair the parapet, but donations from tourists have dropped for other repairs at the church, 120 miles northwest of London.
She urged supporters to “sponsor a gargoyle” to help the fund.
Shakespeare was baptised at Holy Trinity on April 26, 1564, and the church’s burial register lists him as “Gulielimus, filius Johannes Shakspeare,” (William, son of John Shakespeare.)
After a career writing and staging his plays in London, he retired to Stratford in 1611, and was buried in the church chancel — an area near the altar — on April 25, 1616.
His wife, Anne Hathaway, also lies there.
Some 100,000 people visit Holy Trinity every year to view his resting place with its inscription, “Will Shakspeare, Gent” (gentleman). The memorial, erected a few years after his death, features a plump-looking Bard.
“People say he looks like a well-fed pork butcher,” church warden Bill Hicks said. And just in case anyone might think of moving his remains to a safer place, Shakespeare’s gravestone offers a curse, written by the Bard himself.
“Good frend, for Iesus sake, forbeare
To digg the dyst encloased heare
Bleste be ye (the) man (who) spares thes stones
And curst be he (who) moves my bones.”
