The famous Grammar School, founded in Henry VI.’s reign by Thomas Jolyffe, a priest who was a native of Stratford, is above the Guild Hall. As was the case with so many other institutions of a like character, the dissolution of the Monasteries and Foundations saw its funds “appropriated” by the Crown, and this remained the case until the accession of Edward VI., who in 1553 granted a Charter of Incorporation to the principal inhabitants, and with it restored the property formerly belonging to the Guild. The mathematical room and the Latin room are both immediately above the Guild Hall, and in both there are high open–timbered roofs, with remarkably stout tie–beams. It was at the lower end of the Latin room that Shakespeare’s traditional desk used to stand, which was formerly the second master’s desk. Aubrey states that the poet was for a short period a schoolmaster in the country, and, if this is correct, it is, of course, quite possible that he filled the office of junior master at the Grammar School, and used the desk associated by tradition with him. The almshouses, which were formerly for twenty–four poor members of the Guild, and nowadays have twelve male and twelve female inmates, adjoin the school—a row of picturesque half–timbered houses. Close to the river and not far from the Memorial Theatre stands Stratford Church of the Holy Trinity, ideally situated, almost embosomed in trees, and approached on the north side by a beautiful avenue of limes. The building, which was a Collegiate Church from the reign of Edward III. to the Dissolution, is a cruciform edifice consisting of a nave with aisles, a chancel, transepts, and a central tower with an elegant octagonal spire, which seems to dominate the whole town when viewed from a little distance. The building is of mixed styles of architecture, the oldest portions of which are the Early English tower (the present spire was erected in 1764, replacing the ancient wooden one); nave of the same period, though possessing a Decorated clerestory; and the north aisle, built about the beginning of the thirteenth century. The transepts, which were very considerably restored in the reign of Henry VII. by the executors of Sir Hugh Clopton, probably date from the beginning of the thirteenth century. The Decorated south aisle was erected in 1332 by John de Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, and he it was who founded at its east end a chapel dedicated to Sir Thomas of Canterbury. The chancel is Perpendicular, and was built by Dr. Thomas Balshall at the end of the fifteenth century. The north porch is Perpendicular, and the clerestory of the nave was erected late in the fifteenth century, replacing an earlier one of about the same period as the arcade. The north aisle had a chapel at its eastern end, called formerly the Chapel of Our Lady the Virgin, but now commonly known as the Clopton Chapel, on account of the number of tombs belonging to that family which it contains.