Shakespeare's Stratford

It should surprise nobody at this point that the pictures reverted to their original orientation. Just go with it.

Our last week in England we finally had the opportunity to visit Stratford-Upon-Avon, the place where Shakespeare grew up and returned to after his retirement. We visited the homes he and his wife grew up in, the church where he was buried, the library with the majority of the relics relating to his life are preserved, and his daughters home.

He also once had a beautiful retirement home, with a lovely mulberry tree planted in front. The guy who later owned the house got really tired of people coming to take leaves from the tree where Shakespeare sat, so he got really annoyed and chopped it down. An enterprising soul bought the wood and made a fortune selling pens and other relics made from the wood of Shakespeare's mulberry tree. Of course, that tree must have been very large...because there seem to be more relics than there was tree. This didn't stop the tourists from going to visit Shakespeare's home though. So the crabby old man who lived there had it torn down. What a waste. He could have at least moved and let someone else live in the nice house.

A Mulberry Tree "descendant."

Anne Hathaway's Cottage. This is the home his wife grew up in and where he courted her. There are lots of stories about the furniture, which of course are not true but made a lot of money for the family later on.

Supposedly this was the "courting bench" where they would have sat by the fire. They married when Anne was 26 and Shakespeare 18. They had their first child six months later.

This is the kind of view they would have had before the town grew up around them.

The original famous painting of Sir Walter Scott going to visit Shakespeare's monument in Westminster Abbey.

An Early Quarto. Shakespeare never published his plays. After his death other actors and directors collected versions of his works and published them. This is a quarto, meaning the paper used was folded into quarters to make a regular paperback sized book when it was published. I think this is a third publication. Maybe.

These next two are of the first folio, meaning the paper was was folded in half. This would have made it much more expensive.

An early playbill.

This ribbon was used for something important. I forgot what. It used to be rainbow colored but they have faded now.

A medallion and cup from the infamous mulberry tree. They belonged to a man called Garrick. He was a famous Shakespearean actor who came up with the idea of having a Shakespeare Festival. It was mostly to get better fame for himself as an actor, and it worked. It was to be a 200 year jubilee of some sort. He came to the home where Shakespeare lived, picked a room, and declared it the birth room. Of course there was no backing for this, but that is what it is now known for. The jubilee got rained out, but it was still a huge success.

A fake lock of Anne Hathaway's hair. DNA tests have proven otherwise. We don't actually have anything that ever belonged to Shakespeare or his family.

Garrick in his specially designed wig. He made it so that when the ghost visited him as Hamlet it would expand as if his hair were standing on end. It was certainly a...creative...idea.

Fake hair of Shakespeare. The first was said to be his baby hair, the grey to be his in later life.

A fuzzy photo of a costume design.

 Someone at the Klingon Institute translated all of Hamlet into Klingon. No kidding.

Recognize this actor? I can't remember what play it was, but there sure are a lot of big names playing Shakespeare.

Stratford as it would have looked in Shakespeare's time (Late 1500s).

These are coins and a knife sheath from the period. Girls would have intricately carved sheaths like this one. Part of the tradition was that when a woman was married her husband would give her a knife to put in it.

It was common to carry your silverware with you as a sign of status. Forks were new, so if you had a fork you were somebody in the world.

Shakespeare would have lived close to work. He  probably lived near the middle arrows. We know he  frequented an inn with other playwrights on the far right. The arrow to the left is where the Globe theater is located. (I think. I can't read the arrows anymore).

This work is by a contemporary playwright. Note the principal actors.

A Victorian copy of some of the plays.

This was a little book of useless Italian phrases. Shakespeare didn't actually speak Italian, so he probably used a book like this to insert the phrases he wanted.

One of the flyers for a tour of Shakespeare's house. People figured out that they could make money out of this early on. They made up all kinds of stories to attract interest. When the lady who lived there had to sell to family members, she took all the furniture to the house across the street and set up shop there. They would stand in the doorways advertising and yelling insults at each other. 

A Guest Book. Do you see the name of John Keats? Notice that he said he is from "everywhere."

Ian McKellen and Judy Dench in Macbeth.

Sean Bean and someone else famous in Romeo and Juliet.

These are from the directors notes. They had notes for every performance night. Usually of things that went wrong. I took pictures of some of my favorites. I also noticed that Mr. Bean got hurt almost every time and had some serious injuries. I give him bonus points for really getting into it. I hope he was paid well.

Egg white?

 More First Folio Pictures:

 See any interesting names in the guest book?

The back of Shakespeare's house as well as one of his sister's. It would have been part of a row of houses, but they were separated to lower risk of fire damage.

This is a bed in the kitchen living room. Beds were very expensive, so if you had an extra guest bed you would put in in the public living area to show off your wealth. Shakespeare's family was rather well to do, so you can see it tucked there in the corner.

Shakespeare's father was a glove maker.

This is probably the boys' bedroom.

People used to come and scratch their names into the glass of the birth room window. There are so many that some of the older ones are gone.

Henry Irving's signature is in the corner here.

The attic where the girls probably slept.

The birth room. Children often slept with their parents until they were around five. The baby would go into the cradle and the next couple of toddlers would sleep on the trundle bed next to their parents.

It is kind of dark, but this is the kind of woodwork they would have had in their home.

The front of the Shakespeare home. They actually had quite a large home. His sisters house, attached on the far left was just a kitchen and a bedroom upstairs. The rest of this building is their house and the father's business.

 Trinity Church where Shakespeare was buried. He actually isn't buried there because he was a famous author. He was very rich. He didn't publish his plays, but he was a smart businessman. He owned part of a few theatre companies and made further land investments. Some of these land investments included church properties, so he and his family are buried before the alter in this church. (He has a monument in Westminster, but he isn't actually buried there).

The Chained Bible is kept here as well. It is a first edition King James Bible. (I think it's first. I forget. It's important anyway).

The grave itself. They had to rope it off and rewrite the words on a plaque because the number of visitors was wearing it way too fast. I honestly found his grave underwhelming after all these famous authors standing on his grave claiming that they are breathing in the dust of Shakespeare's body. Meh.

This picture is bad, but note the beams that are close together. This is in the house of Shakespeare's daughter, who was married to a doctor. The beams don't have to be that close together. A regular building was had beams about three feet apart. However, having extra beams showed off how wealthy you were. Other signs of wealth included black clothing, which was hard to dye and washed out quickly, and ruffs. The bigger the ruff and the more layers it had the wealthier you were. Sometimes the collars were so big that starch wasn't enough to keep them up and they had to add wooden rods. Of course if it rained, all this was ruined, so they would have servants carry special collar boxes with them, just in case.

None of the other students would play dress up with me at Royal Shakespeare Company Theater, but the professor's kids came and played with me. We had a blast.

The opening set for Wendy and Peter Pan by the Royal Shakespeare Company