As church shows its age, Bard is still the rage
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON, England -- At 2:30 on a cold January afternoon, Paul Ruan walked into Holy Trinity Church, stood before William Shakespeare's grave and read the curse engraved on the headstone.
"Blese be ye man yt spares thes stones/And curst be he yt moves my bones."...
At 2:45, a busload of Argentine students crowded around the brass railing and red velvet kneelers at the foot of the grave. Other visitors followed, eager to glimpse the final resting place of the man often called the world's greatest writer. Most paid the white-haired lady collecting the suggested (but not mandatory) $3 admission fee, $1 for students.
Money is a big issue for the 800-year-old church these days because the roof leaks, the metal in the windows is corroding and a small invasion force of deathwatch beetles is boring into the ancient timbers. It is a familiar story in England, where hundreds of centuries-old churches, left largely devoid of worshipers by a modern trend toward secularism, need hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of repairs...
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"Blese be ye man yt spares thes stones/And curst be he yt moves my bones."...
At 2:45, a busload of Argentine students crowded around the brass railing and red velvet kneelers at the foot of the grave. Other visitors followed, eager to glimpse the final resting place of the man often called the world's greatest writer. Most paid the white-haired lady collecting the suggested (but not mandatory) $3 admission fee, $1 for students.
Money is a big issue for the 800-year-old church these days because the roof leaks, the metal in the windows is corroding and a small invasion force of deathwatch beetles is boring into the ancient timbers. It is a familiar story in England, where hundreds of centuries-old churches, left largely devoid of worshipers by a modern trend toward secularism, need hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of repairs...