On Henley Street, at the heart of Stratford-upon-Avon, this timber-framed house is one of the most visited places in England: it was here, in 1564, that William Shakespeare was born. A modest craftsman's house become a literary shrine, it embodies the beating heart of the English Renaissance — not painting or sculpture, but the word.
The house of a Stratford glover
The building was raised around 1530. The poet's father, John Shakespeare — a glover and wool merchant, who became bailiff (mayor) of Stratford — settled here as early as 1551: the house was at once family home and workshop, with its shop opening onto the street. It was there that William grew up, the eldest of the surviving sons, in the milieu of the prosperous provincial lesser bourgeoisie. He inherited it at his father's death. The house, with its oak frame and its period-furnished interiors, restores the living setting of a family of craftsmen-merchants of Elizabethan England.
The cradle of the greatest of poets
Shakespeare's Birthplace is not only an old house: it is the place of origin of a literary revolution. From this provincial glover's workshop came the man who would give the English language its greatest works and forge hundreds of words and expressions still alive. The house became, from the eighteenth century, a place of pilgrimage: its window bears the carved signatures of illustrious visitors come to pay homage to genius. To see: John Shakespeare's glover's workshop, the period-furnished interiors, the window covered with illustrious signatures, the period plant garden.
Did you know?
In 1846, the famous American showman P.T. Barnum wanted to buy Shakespeare's birthplace and ship it, brick by brick, to the United States to exhibit it. The threat made such a stir that it prompted a national subscription and the founding of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, created to buy and protect the house — it is to this failed stroke of audacity that its preservation is owed.
Notes
Shakespeare's Birthplace lies on Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire; a museum run by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, open to the public. Hours to check.
Quiz
- In what year was Shakespeare born in this house?
- In 1564
- In 1485
- In 1616
- What was his father John's trade?
- Glover and wool merchant
- Painter
- Sailor
- Who wanted to buy the house in 1846 to take it to the United States?
- The showman P.T. Barnum
- Queen Victoria
- A king of France