Guild Chapel paintings and graffiti
Pamela Devine
Monday 16 October - White Swan Hotel - 6pm
The walls of the Guild Chapel in Stratford are covered with historic graffiti, some of it dating back over 500 years. Writing on walls was once commonplace, and there is a growing awareness that such graffiti constitute a valuable historical resource which should be preserved and recorded. Pamela’s talk will explain the context, then examine the graffiti left by medieval Guild members, William Shakespeare’s neighbours and contemporaries - perhaps even Shakespeare himself - and the people who have come and gone from the building in the centuries afterwards. The walls really do talk!
Pamela Devine graduated with a first-class honours degree in History in 2017, and has been a visitor guide at the Guild Chapel for over 7 years. She has an extensive knowledge of the Chapel and its medieval wall paintings, and has given numerous talks about them. She recently surveyed the Chapel’s walls for its historic graffiti, the subject of her book, Writing on Shakespeare’s Walls: The Historic Graffiti in the Guild Chapel, Stratford-upon-Avon.
