This is a beautiful and ancient medieval church in the village of Beoley that sits between Worcestershire and Warwickshire, near where I live. It's called St Leonard's and dates to the 12th century, when monks first built a church on the site back in Normandy times.. it's got this unusual tomb for the world famous Sheldon family who put Britain on the map for tapestry weaving. Rather eerily all the family members (some knights of the realm) have been cast in stone in death poses in the chapel wearing full body armour with swords.
Anyway, this church has long had rumours of having the skull from none other than William Shakespeare hidden below the Sheldon chapel in their family tomb vault. According to local legend, the story came about as a result of a mysterious book published in the 19th century by a local anonymous author.
Nobody knew if it was true or just some fanciful story, and the book was long forgotten about. But recently it resurfaced again (after being long out of print) and a local village magazine got hold of a copy and decided to investigate the story to get to the bottom of it to see if it was indeed true. I've read the book myself as someone has kindly scanned it and you can download it now freely online. It's a fascinating and amusing read.. a gristly tale of skull-duggery and dodgy goings on in my locality in the latter part of the 18th century which is when the said dastardly deed of someone stealing Shakespeare's skull as a trophy was said to have taken place. Senior politicians are even involved!
I won't spoil the story or ending, but for those interested it's well worth reading the book first and then looking at the magazine article to discover their findings..
How Shakespeare's skull was stolen and found <-- book
http://home.btconnect.com/platform/pdfs/oct09.pdf <-- magazine
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