(Sean Coughlan’s article appeared on BBC News, 4/22; via Pam Green.)
The original classroom where William Shakespeare is believed to have studied and seen his first plays opens to the public for the first time this weekend.
The classroom is owned by the King Edward VI school, the direct successor to the grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon attended by Shakespeare from about 1571.
It will be open to visitors after a £1.8m lottery-funded renovation.
Among the discoveries was a hidden pre-Reformation wall painting.
Bennet Carr, headmaster of the modern day grammar school, says of the atmospheric building: "If I'm on my own in there sometimes, the hairs stand on the back of my neck."
His school is now going to share the classroom with visitors, with the renovated building opening on Saturday, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.
The schoolroom where Shakespeare studied from the age of seven was the upper floor of the town's half-timbered medieval guildhall.