Qualla: King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon

King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon: Introduction

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aniacra, CC BY-SA 4.0. On the first floor of a half-timbered guildhall in central Stratford-upon-Avon, in a long, low-ceilinged room that the Victorians began calling Big School, the pupils of King Edward VI School still sit for lessons. The room dates from the 15th century. Beneath the timbers, in the ground-floor guildhall, the rods that supported temporary stages for travelling players in the 1570s have left visible holes in the woodwork. It is almost certain that William Shakespeare attended this school between roughly 1571 and 1578. It is also nearly certain that, as a small boy of seven, he watched some of those travelling companies set up their boards in the room beneath his classroom. The school is still teaching boys here. The boards have gone, but the holes remain.

Image: Aniacra | CC BY-SA 4.0

King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon: A Schoolroom from 1295

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Garlick, CC BY-SA 2.0. Education at this address goes back further than most English schools can claim. A Stratford Register of Deacons from May 1295 records the ordination of a man called Richard as rector scholarum - schoolmaster - to teach the alphabet, the psalter and the basic rites to boys. The s...

Image: Michael Garlick | CC BY-SA 2.0

King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon: Shakespeare in the Classroom

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Abc2def2g, CC0. There is no surviving register that names William Shakespeare among the pupils of the school, because no such pupil registers from the 1570s survive anywhere. What there is, instead, is overwhelming circumstantial evidence. His father John Shakespeare was an alderman and bailiff ...

Image: Abc2def2g | CC0

King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon: The Annual Procession

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit G-Man at English Wikipedia, Public domain. On 23 April each year - Shakespeare's traditional birthday, by Stratford reckoning - the pupils and teachers of King Edward VI walk in formal procession from the school in Church Street down to Holy Trinity Church on the riverbank, where they lay flowers on his grave. The traditi...

Image: G-Man at English Wikipedia | Public domain

King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon: Pedagogue's House and the Guild Chapel

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michelle Walz Eriksson, CC BY 2.0. The school's buildings are a microcosm of English architecture from the late medieval to the present. Pedagogue's House, built around 1427, is believed to be the oldest half-timbered schoolroom still in use anywhere in England. It is attached to the Old Vicarage where the headmas...

Image: Michelle Walz Eriksson | CC BY 2.0

King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon: What the School Has Produced

Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Dixon, CC BY-SA 2.0. Beyond Shakespeare and Richard Field and Robert Dibdale, the alumni list is its own small Who's Who of English public life. Two 14th-century brothers, John and Robert de Stratford, both became great officers of state and bishops; John eventually Archbishop of Canterbury. In the 2...

Image: David Dixon | CC BY-SA 2.0