Guild Chapel

Guild Chapel of the Holy Cross
The chapel from Church Street
Location	Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
Coordinates	52°11′26″N 1°42′28″W / 52.1905°N 1.7077°W / 52.1905; -1.7077
Built	13th century
Architectural style(s)	Perpendicular
Governing body	Stratford Town Trust[1]
Listed Building – Grade I
Official name	Guild Chapel of the Holy Cross
Designated	25 October 1951
Reference no.	1204554.
Location of Guild Chapel of the Holy Cross in Warwickshire

The Guild Chapel of the Holy Cross, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire is a chapel of 13th-century origins. Founded by the Guild of the Holy Cross before 1269, it passed into the control of the town corporation in 1553, when the Guild was suppressed by Edward VI. The chapel stands on Church Street, opposite the site of William Shakespeare's home, New Place, and has historic connections to Shakespeare's family. The chapel was gifted an extensive series of wall-paintings by Hugh Clopton, an earlier owner of New Place, and John Shakespeare, Shakespeare's father, undertook their defacement in the later 1500s. The paintings have recently been conserved.

Clopton undertook a major expansion of the chapel before his death in 1496, constructing a new nave which was incomplete when he died. The chapel was restored in a thirty-year programme undertaken by Stephen Dykes Bower from 1954-1983 and is a Grade I listed building. Owned and maintained by the Stratford-upon-Avon Town Trust, the chapel is used for services by King Edward VI School.