Shakespeare's Funerary Monument

Shakespeare's Funerary Monument

The Shakespeare funerary monument is a memorial to William Shakespeare located inside Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, UK, the same church in which Shakespeare was baptised.

The monument, by Gerard Johnson, is mounted on the north wall of the chancel. It features a demi-figure of the poet, which holds a quill pen in one hand and holds down a piece of paper resting on a cushion with the other. The style was most commonly used for divines, academics, and those professions with pretensions of learning. The monument is topped with strapwork rising to a heraldic shield containing the Shakespeare family's coat of arms, on either side of which stands two allegorical figures: one, representing Labour, holds a spade, the other, representing Rest, holds a torch and a skull.

The date the monument was erected is not known exactly, but it must have been before 1623; in that year, the First Folio of Shakespeare's works was published, prefaced by a poem by Leonard Digges that mentions "thy Stratford moniment" . The monument was restored in 1748-9 and has been repainted several times.