In Shakespeare country, virtually every stone and timber seems to be associated with the playwright and poet, writes AMY LAUGHINGHOUSE
‘ALL THE world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts,” William Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It. As legend – and liberally interpreted church records – has it, Shakespeare made his own entrance, and exit, on April 23rd. He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564 and died on the same day, in the same town, 52 years later.
Stratford will host the Bard’s 445th birthday bash on April 23rd to 26th, with a parade, folk dancing, roving actors, and a marathon, proving that although the dramatist has been dead for nearly four centuries, his legend remains larger than life.
In Shakespeare country in South Warwickshire, England, virtually every stone and timber seems to be associated with the playwright and poet, whose sonnets were published exactly four centuries ago. At Kenilworth Castle, now a moody, romantic ruin, Queen Elizabeth I was feted in 1575 with fantastic celebrations that were said to have inspired A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Meanwhile, Warwick Castle played an important role in the lives of many figures that take the stage in Shakespeare’s “king” plays.
Nowhere is his influence more evident than in Stratford-upon-Avon, where my husband Scott and I find ourselves face-to-face with history in the form of a fellow in a feathered hat, leather doublet, and trunk hose striding across Southern Lane. Could he be a restless spirit destined to submit, like Hamlet’s father, to “sulphurous and tormenting flames?”
The ringing emanating from some unseen pocket among his person suggests otherwise. “That’s Elizabeth I calling me,” the dashing gentleman jests, sneaking a glance at his mobile. “I can’t get a good signal on the potato,” he apologises, before posing for a photo. “Do you want me to run someone through with my sword?” he queries, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Because I charge for that.”
In fact, the mystery man is Garrick Huscared, an actor and artist whose name is an homage to David Garrick, the 18th century thespian who held Stratford’s inaugural Shakespeare Festival in 1769. Huscared, who returned to England after a 15-year stint in Hollywood, is out and about promoting Shakespeare in Art, a group of artists working to preserve the poet’s final resting place, Stratford’s Holy Trinity Church, which could face closure if its clerestory windows aren’t repaired.
Fortunately, five local houses linked with the playwright are in considerably better repair. His mother’s childhood home, Mary Arden’s Farm, is about six kilometres from Stratford, and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, where Shakespeares wife was raised, is only two kilometres outside town. A City Sightseeing bus ferries folks to all five properties, but we prefer to focus on central Stratford, getting our bearings on foot with the Stratford Town Walk.
As we stroll, guide Helen Hogg peels away the centuries, revealing the secrets of the slumping, slanting timber frames which flank Stratford’s streets. Long before Crabtree Evelyn began hawking avocado, olive and basil body butter, it was the home of Shakespeare’s daughter, Judith, who married a philandering ne’er-do-well. His elder daughter, Susanna, once lived in Hall’s Croft with her husband John Hall, the town doctor. Outside this peak-roofed post and beam, Hogg describes 16th century medical treatments, such as dangling a frog over a sore throat (hence the saying, “A frog in your throat”), and a cure for constipation that combined ground pebbles and the equivalent of gunpowder. “Please, don’t try this at home,” Hogg warns wryly.
In the cantilevered grammar school on Church Street, young Will received a remarkably comprehensive education, which should put paid to speculation that he wouldn’t have had the wit to write some of the worlds greatest works. And just a few hundred yards away sits Nash’s House, which was owned by Shakespeare’s granddaughter, Elizabeth.
Shakespeare lived out his final days in New Place, next to Nash’s House, but in 1759, the owner, Francis Gastrell, tore down that mansion, outraged over a tax dispute and weary of visits from Shakespeare’s fans. The curmudgeon had already invoked the town’s wrath by felling a mulberry tree that the playwright had planted – although a local carver salvaged the wood and transformed it into a suspicious number of trinkets. “He made a whole forest of them,” winks Julian Spilsbury, a guide at Nash House, where some of those items are on display. A descendent of the original mulberry now occupies a garden behind Nash House and serves as Stratford’s answer to the Blarney Stone. “Touch the bark, and you’ll be talking poetry,” Spilsbury promises.
The most significant site, however, is the timber frame on Henley Street where the Bard was born. Built around 1530, approximately 60 to 70 per cent of the original structure remains. The ground floor encompasses a dark, cramped reception room, a surprisingly bright kitchen (“dual aspect”, Scott notes admiringly, slipping into estate agent mode), and a workshop where Shakespeare’s father made gloves. Upstairs, one room is devoted to a display about famous visitors, including John Keats, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Thomas Hardy. Several scratched their initials into a diamond paned window, which is now preserved behind glass. As we peruse this exhibit, a woman in period costume beckons us into a wood-beamed bedroom. “Youre just in time for the birth!” she smiles, before explaining how Shakespeare entered the world in that very room and slept on a little trundle bed as a child, covered with a red blanket “to ward off ill health”.
Now he lays not beneath a blanket, but under a stone floor, buried beside his wife in a 15th century chancel at Holy Trinity Church, our final stop. Overhead, a carved bust of the poet gazes upon the hundreds of thousands who make the pilgrimage here annually to see the grave and the font where Shakespeare was baptised. “Somewhere in the world, probably every hour, one of his plays is starting,” muses the chancel guide, a white-haired gentleman sporting a tie emblazoned with Shakespeare’s face. History is indeed destined to repeat itself, and in the theatre, at least, it’s met with resounding applause.
Amy Laughinghouse was a guest of Shakespeare Country, 00-44-8701-607930, www.shakespeare-country.co.uk
Go there
Fly Ryanair (www.ryanair. com) between Dublin and Birmingham; Aer Lingus (www.aerlingus.com) and BMI Baby (www.bmibaby. com) between Cork and Birmingham; or Flybe (www.flybe.com) between Belfast and Birmingham or take your car on Irish Ferres (www.irishferries.com). For information on trains to Stratford-upon-Avon, contact National Rail at 00-44-8457-484950, www.nationalrail.co.uk, or Chiltern Railways Enquiries, 00-44-8456-005165, www.chilternrailways.co.uk.