Stratford upon Avon is truly one of the oldest towns in England. Many of the town’s central buildings are at least 400+ years old! We walked from our B&B into the town centre. This is where the birthplace of William Shakespeare is located. Faywen was the most excited of us all! She LOVES Shakespeare and today was a very momentous occasion for her.

His birthplace isn’t much to look at, but it is of great importance in the world of English literature. William Shakespeare was born on 23 April 1564 and died the same date in 1616. He was the third child and eldest son of a wealthy glove maker John Shakespeare and his wife Mary Arden Shakespeare. William married Anne Hathaway in 1582.They had three children Susanna, and twins Hammet and Judith. Hammet died at age 11, but the two daughters lived into adulthood and married. He had 4 grandchildren, but only one lived to be an adult, Elizabeth. Sadly she had no children and the only descendants of the Shakespeare’s are through William’s sister.

He attended the Guild Chapel Boys School for free from age 7-14. It was primarily a Latin school where pupils attended 5 ½ days a week for 11 hours a day with only a 2 hour lunch. It wasn’t all hard learning. They did enjoy having theatrical groups perform and often the students put on plays for the community. This is the first theatrical influence on William and would serve to make a lasting impression on him for the rest of his life.

He lived in his parent’s house with Anne until become financially stable. It was in 1597 he purchased, a few blocks down the street, a well-known manner house owned by the Clopton family. It was called New House. Anne and his two daughters lived most of their lives in New House. Shakespeare traveled to London quite a lot in order to oversee play productions, He wanted a nice place for his wife and children to reside while he was gone. Shakespeare is said to have loved New House and probably wrote most of his plays in his small office. Sadly, the home no longer exists having been torn down in the early 1700’s. A memorial garden is there today.

Shakespeare was well versed in the Scriptures as well as in leather working, especially glove making since it was his father’s profession. He references the Scriptures and glove making repeatedly in many of his plays. He also believed in the sanctity of marriage, which is evident in his plays too.

Susanna married Physician John Hall, whom Shakespeare approved of and grew to value as a son. Many of the estates, manuscripts, and artifacts we have today are because of Susanna and John Hall. Hall House was purchased for the newlyweds by William and they lived there for several years. John practiced medicine from the home. However all the medicine in the world couldn’t help his father-in-law. Shakespeare died of the New Fever (Typhus) in 1616.

He left the world a treasure trove of plays and poems, of which many phrases have become part of the English speaking world: Break the ice, All’s well that ends well, It’s Greek to me, Brave new world, Jealousy is a green-eyed monster, Melted into thin air and Not slept one wink…to name a few. He wrote 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 4 narrative poems.

We finished our Shakespeare pilgrimage at Holy Trinity Church where he is buried along with his wife Anne. They are buried in front of the Altar. After his death his wife and daughters had a statue made to sit in the church. It is said to be the closest in resemblance to what William Shakespeare really looked like in life.