Historic church where William Shakespeare got married among England’s ‘most at-risk buildings’

The historic Warwickshire church where William Shakespeare was said to have got married has been named one of the most at-risk buildings in England and Wales. The legendary playwright was understood to have wed Anne Hathaway at St Andrew’s Church in Temple Grafton, near Stratford-upon-Avon, on November 27, 1582.

For that very reason, the mediaeval gothic church is visited by many tourists each year. But the religious building turned attraction, rebuilt in 1875 by celebrated architect Frederick Preedy, might not live to tell many more Winter’s Tales, The Victorian Society fear.

The building has serious structural issues, meaning services cannot be held. Oak shingles and the spire are said to be loose and unsafe.

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The problems are so severe the building, built to replace an Anglo-Saxon church, has been named on a list of the Society’s 10 most endangered sites of national importance in England and Wales It says each entry on the list faces the prospect of being lost and is “desperately in need of help”.

A fundraising campaign has reportedly been started to meet the £250,000 cost of works needed.

Griff Rhys Jones, actor, comedian and Society president, said: “It’s just magnificent. The heart of many country villages is the church, and this is a gem.

“We cannot let it go. It would be a tragedy if Temple Grafton were to lose a second church.”

The church is considered one of Preedy’s finest constructions in the West Midlands and features ‘glorious’ stained glass also designed by him. It stands on the edge of a hill with ‘commanding views across a valley to Bredon Hill and the Cotswolds’.

St Andrew’s Church is joined on the most endangered list by the likes of London’s Liverpool Street station, Rockwell Green Water Tower in Somerset and Carlisle Victorian and Turkish Baths. Plans by developer Sellar to remove part of Liverpool Street station’s roof to construct a 10-storey hotel and office block, set a “dangerous precedent” for a Grade II listed building, the society said.

Sellar said the project would prioritise, protect and restore the remaining Victorian elements of the building “while delivering £450m of vital station improvements to address severe accessibility and overcrowding issues”.

“The original Liverpool Street station was largely demolished in the 1980s and replaced with the current concourse and facilities which were designed for far fewer travellers than are using the station today,” it said.

Less than half of the current roof, built in the early 1990s, would be removed, it added. But the society and eight other heritage organisations believe that if plans are approved “no listed building is safe from harm”.

“I cannot believe that we have had to put a national monument, a great railway station, a part of the story of London and the city on to our list of endangered buildings,” Mr Jones said.

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