BCD Special Report on
Historic Churches
17th annual edition
29
had been moved to a diferent site, and much
comparative research the cloister buildings
were reconstructed displaying a Transitional
architectural style and retaining earlier features.
With the church and cloister complete,
the rest of the site remained to reconstruct.
Te church stands in the northwest corner
of the seven acre precinct, occupying only
a small proportion of the available space.
Te only non-cloister building for which any
evidence survives was the gatehouse which
stood on Micklegate until 1855, long enough
for drawings and photographs of it to be made.
When it was demolished to make way for
site redevelopment it was surveyed, leaving
an unprecedented record of this 14th century
fragment of the monastic site. Based on this
evidence it was apparent that the gatehouse
had been heavily altered and reduced in size.
Comparative evidence from other urban
monastic sites was sought in order to complete
the reconstruction. A few tantalising hints from
antiquarian maps and images survive which
suggest what the remaining fve to six acres
of the monastic site contained. Tis included
large areas for small-scale farming, space for
works yards, and the boundaries of the outer
court. However, the details of these areas and
the buildings therein were wholly unknown.
Comparative evidence at other houses of
similar size was sought. Te resulting model
draws from sites across the country. During
this phase of virtual reconstruction it became
clear that, while the layout and function
of monastic precincts in general are well
understood, there is no specifc understanding
of the layout and function of urban monastic
sites. Tis is despite their abundant though
fragmentary survival and continuing impact
on the development of every urban centre
in England. Te gap in knowledge has
prompted renewed and ongoing archaeological
reinvestigation of the site using ground
penetrating radar to locate buried medieval
wall foundations and further traces of the
layout and function of the monastic precinct.
Finally, the digital reconstruction process
brought into focus one key event in the site’s
development: the collapse of the church’s
central tower in 1551. It is this event which
guided that development of the church
building far more than the whims of Henry
VIII and profteering property developers.
While the fact of the tower’s collapse is
known, the extent of the damage and the
related subject of the size and form of the
Romanesque tower itself are completely
unknown. Here, computer modelling has come
to the aid of historical and archaeological
research. A stone-by-stone virtual model of
the tower and surrounding church fabric was
created. Tis was then subjected to a ‘physics
simulation’ which modelled the extent of the
damage from the tower’s collapse. Te result
is a sequence of animations re-envisaging
the collapse of the tower and the devastation
it wrought. Witnessing the ruin, it is easy to
understand why the parish did not choose
to rebuild, but to retreat into the surviving
building and turn the remains over to stone
quarrying thus triggering 70 years of systematic
erasure of centuries of monastic heritage.
The Guild Chapel, Stratford-upon-Avon (Kate Giles and Geof Arnott)
1449–50, while the nave was rebuilt in 1496 by
the wealthy Stratford and London merchant
and alderman Sir Hugh Clopton, who also
rebuilt New Place, later occupied by Stratford’s
most famous son, William Shakespeare.
In 1804, a series of wall paintings was
discovered during restoration works in the
chapel. Tey were described by the antiquarian
Robert Wheler, and drawn by his contemporary
Tomas Fisher, although the drawings were
only published in 1838. Te chancel contained
a narrative sequence of the Legend of the
Discovery of the True Cross, in two tiers of
images, spread across the north and south walls.
Te south wall also contained an image of a
bishop and a crucifx, while dragons inhabited
the spandrels over the priests’ door. Over the
chancel arch was a ‘Doom’, or Last Judgement,
with Christ seated on a rainbow, located just
above the rood, whose outline, including the
crucifx and fanking images of St John and
Mary, can still be seen above the chancel arch
today. In the nave, the restorations exposed
fgures of St Modwena and St Ursula. On the
west wall, fanking the tower arch, were again
two tier-images images of the martyrdom
of St Tomas Becket above an allegorical
memento mori painting of the poem ‘erthe
out of erthe’, and an image of St George and
the Dragon over an image of the Whore of
Babylon. Sadly, despite the signifcance of the
paintings, they were subsequently destroyed
or whitewashed. It was not until 1928 that
the Last Judgement, over the chancel arch,
was re-exposed and ‘restored’ by the famous
wall paintings expert, EW Tristram.
No paintings were discovered on the nave
walls in 1804. However, in 1576, the antiquarian
John Stow had annotated his edition of Leland’s
Itinerary, with the following reference:
Around the nave of this chapel there
was carefully painted the Dance of Death,
Reconstruction of the Guild Chapel, Stratford-upon-Avon showing the north wall of the chancel decorated with
scenes from the Legend of the Holy Cross (Image: Geof Arnott/Heritage Technology)
Te Stratford Guild Chapel project emerged as
a consequence of another project being carried
out on the ‘guild buildings’ of Stratford-upon-
Avon, in conjunction with King Edward VI
Grammar School. Tis work had highlighted the
signifcance of the Guild Chapel, which is used
by the school but maintained by Te Friends
of the Guild Chapel charitable trust. During
the 19th and 20th centuries, restoration works
had uncovered a series of wall paintings in the
chapel, which were described and drawn by
antiquarians, before being whitewashed and
destroyed. Te original aim of the Stratford
project was therefore simple; to create a digital
reconstruction of the chapel interior which
could provide the backdrop or canvas onto
which the antiquarian drawings could be
‘projected’, so that the extent of the painted
scheme could be appreciated for the frst time
since the 16th century. Te initial phase of
the project was carried out as part of an MSc
dissertation by Geof Arnott in the Department
of Archaeology, University of York, but more
recent work has been funded by the department
of Archaeology’s research-priming fund.
Te guild of the Holy Cross, Stratford-
upon-Avon was licensed in 1269 to establish
a hospital for the maintenance of poor priests
in the diocese of Worcester. A century later
it had become the dominant guild within the
town, amalgamating with the guilds of the
Blessed Virgin and St John the Baptist, and
playing an important role in the social and
political, as well as the religious life, of the town.
Te chapel is located on the corner of Chapel
Lane, adjacent to the Guildhall complex on
Church Street. It is built of squared sandstone
and consists of a four-bay nave with a western
tower, a low, two-bay chancel and a north
porch. Surviving documentary sources of the
guild reveal that the present chancel is the
result of a rebuilding which commenced in