Shakespeare's Birthplace
The house where Shakespeare grew up was once a butcher's shop, and in 1847 it was nearly lost before Britain scraped together £3,000 to save it.
Published
Quick Facts
- Location
- Henley Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
- Built
- Timber-framed, 16th century in the main (parts may be older)
- Shakespeare family link
- John Shakespeare bought a Henley Street house in 1556; William was baptised in 1564
- Saved for the nation
- Bought at auction in 1847 for £3,000
- Owner
- Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, founded in 1847 and incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1891
- Listing
- Grade I
- Family trade
- Glove-making and wool dealing
- Garden
- Planted with flowers and herbs mentioned in Shakespeare's works
The house that was nearly a showpiece in America
By the 1840s the building where England's greatest writer was said to have been born was in poor shape. Part of it was a butcher's shop. When it came up for auction in 1847, a story spread that the American showman P. T. Barnum fancied buying it and shipping it across the Atlantic. Whether or not Barnum ever truly meant it, the idea shocked people into action. A committee raised money, supporters including Charles Dickens backed the cause, and the house was bought for £3,000. That committee grew into the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which has looked after the house ever since.
A glover's house, with room to spare
John Shakespeare, William's father, was a glover and wool dealer, and he bought a house on Henley Street in 1556. It was a working home with a workshop attached, and a decent address for a man on the rise. John later served as a town official, rising to bailiff of Stratford in 1568. That makes the house less a humble cottage than the base of a busy, ambitious family business. Today you can see a glover's workshop set up inside, a reminder of where the family money came from.
A child of the plague year
William was baptised at Holy Trinity Church on 26 April 1564. Tradition puts his birthday on 23 April, three days earlier, which conveniently matches St George's Day and the date of his death in 1616. It is a lovely tidy story, and it is a tradition rather than a recorded fact. He was baptised in April, just before plague swept through Stratford that summer. He survived it and grew up on Henley Street, and he probably lived there until he married Anne Hathaway in 1582.
Inn, butcher's and Victorian makeover
After Shakespeare's death the property stayed in the family for generations. His sister Joan Hart lived there, and Shakespeare's will gave her the right to stay on at a nominal rent. Part of the building later became an inn, the Maidenhead, later known as the Swan and Maidenhead. The Hart family's descendants sold the house in 1806, and a butcher's business moved into one section. When the building was rescued in the nineteenth century, the restorers stripped away later additions and neighbouring buildings and returned it to something close to a Tudor look. So what you see is partly a Victorian idea of what a Tudor house should be, built on genuine sixteenth-century bones.
Myth versus reality
The big question is whether Shakespeare was really born in the upstairs room shown to visitors. There is no document that proves it. The belief goes back a long way, and the house certainly belonged to his father at the time. The furniture in the rooms is not original. It is chosen to reflect the period, not to claim it belonged to the family. That doesn't make the visit any less atmospheric, because you are standing where the Shakespeare family lived and worked.
What to look out for
Start with the garden, planted with species that crop up in the plays and poems. Inside, look for the glove workshop, the low beams, the uneven floors and the birth room with its Tudor-style bed. Next door is the Shakespeare Centre, which opened in 1964 to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. It forms the modern entrance and holds the Trust's collections. Then stroll down to Holy Trinity Church, where William was baptised and buried, to follow his story from beginning to end.
Notable people
- William Shakespeare
- John Shakespeare
- Mary Arden
- Joan Hart
- Anne Hathaway
- P. T. Barnum
- Charles Dickens