Shakespeare’s house and garden - The Bard’s birthplace

Shakespeare’s house and garden
The Bard’s birthplace
He was not of an age, but for all time.
-Ben Jonson, 1623

Driving over 100 miles from Central London, I joined hundreds of secular pilgrims moving down Henley Road in Stratford-upon-Avon to pay homage to the greatest and most famous of English writers and probably the most popular dramatist who has ever lived, William Shakespeare (1564-1616).

The little countryside town was peaceful with no traffic or high-rise buildings. Instead, stretches of fields and barns that were planted with fruit-trees, vegetable, herb, traditional flowers and shrubs were a beautiful sight. Wild flowers described by Shakespeare such as the ‘pale primrose’, ‘blue-veined violets’, ‘the freckled cowslip, burnet and green clover’, and ‘rough thistles’ were in bloom beside walkways and in gardens.

A visit to Shakespeare’s house helps to satisfy the curiosity about his family and background. It also reminds that although his career took him to London, his native town was of significance throughout his life.
Stratford was the place where he was born, went to school, attended church, met his wife Anne Hathaway, first saw plays, saw his children grow up, invested in property, retired and died. He inherited the house when his father died in 1601 and bequeathed it on his own death to his eldest daughter. The Birthplace became a national memorial in 1847.


Plays written by Shakespeare

Henry VI part 2
Henry VI part 3
Henry VI part 1
Richard III
The Comedy of Errors
Titus Andronicus
The Taming of the Shrew
The Gentlemen of Verona
Loves Labour’s Lost
Romeo and Juliet
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Henry VIII
Hamlet
The Merry Wives of Windsor
Twelfth Night
Troilus and Cressida
All’s Well that Ends Well
Measure for Measure
Othello
King Lear
Macbeth
Antony and Cleopatra
Timon of Athens
The Winter’s Tale
Two Noble Kinsmen
Richard II
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
King John
The Merchant of Venice
Henry IV part 1
Henry IV part 2
Much Ado About Nothing
Henry V
Julius Caesar
As You Like It
Pericles
The Tempest





******Side view from the garden ********************************************












******Inside the Holy Trinity Church - the resting place of the Bard*************
















“Good friend for Jesus sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And curse be he that move my bones.”*********************************
















*******The entrance to Shakespeare Centre************************************












******Down Henley Road, Stratford*******************************************