Summer Days in Shakespeare Land

by Charles G. Harper

It was a very picturesque old row, with the “Swan” inn hanging out its sign; and perhaps, in these times of reconstructions, it may even yet be rebuilt, after the evidences of it that exist.

In Bridge Street is another landmark in the way of literary associations. The “Red Horse” hotel has a large, dull and uninteresting plaster front, but American visitors find the house attractive on account of Washington Irving’s stay there about a hundred years ago, when he was writing of Shakespeare and Shakespeare’s country. The sitting-room he occupied is kept somewhat as a shrine to his memory, and the chair he fancifully called his “throne” is still there, but you may not sit in it. It is kept under lock and key, in a cupboard with glass doors. The poker he likened to his sceptre is kept jealously in the bar. Citizens of the United States ask to see it, and it is reverently produced and unfolded from the many swathings of “Old Glory” in which it is enwrapped: “Old Glory” being, it is necessary to explain to Britishers, the United States flag, the “stars and stripes.” Gazing upon it, they see that it is engraved with a dedicatory inscription by another citizen of the U.S.A.

If you proceed down Bridge Street you come presently to the Clopton Bridge that crosses the Avon, and so out of the town. The bridge is one of the many works of public utility and practical piety executed, instituted, or ordained in his will by Sir Hugh Clopton, the greatest benefactor Stratford has known. A scion of that numerous family, seated at Clopton House a mile out of the town, he went to London and prospered as a mercer, becoming Lord Mayor in 1492. Leland, writing in 1532, quaintly tells of him and his bridge: “Hugh Clopton aforesaid made also the great and sumptuous Bridge upon Avon, at the East ende of the Towne, which hath 14 great Arches of stone and a long Causey made of Stone, lowe walled on each syde, at the West Ende of the Bridge. Afor the tyme of Hugh Clopton there was but a poore Bridge of Tymbre, and no Causey to come to it; whereby many poore Folkes and others refused to come to Stratford when Avon was up, or comminge thither, stood in jeopardye of Lyfe. The Bridge ther of late tyme,” he proceeds to say, “was very smalle and ille, and at high Waters very hard to come by. Whereupon, in tyme of mynde, one Clopton a very rich Marchant and Mayr of London, as I remember, borne about Strateforde, having neither Wife nor Children, converted a great Peace of his Substance in good workes at Stratford, first making a sumptuus new Bridge and large of Stone when in the midle be a VI great Arches for the main Streame of Avon, and at eache Ende certen small Arches to bere the Causey, and so to pass commodiously at such tymes as the Ryver riseth.”

The bridge was widened in 1814. I do not think that great benefactor of Stratford intended that tolls should be charged for passing over his bridge, but in the course of time, such charges were made, and the very large and imposing toll-house that remains shows us that it is not so very long since the bridge has been freed again.

There are many who consider the Harvard House to be the most delightful piece of ancient domestic work in the town, and it is indeed a gem. The history of it is absolutely clear. It was built in 1596 by one Thomas Rogers, alderman. His initials and those of his wife Alice, together with the date are still to be seen, carved on the woodwork beneath the first-floor window. The carved brackets supporting the first floor represent the Warwick Bear and Ragged Staff and the bull of the Nevilles. The bull is easily recognisable, but the bear is only to be identified after considerable study, and looks a good deal more like a pig. Katharine Rogers, daughter of the builders of this house, married Robert Harvard of Southwark, butcher, in 1605. Almost everything in Stratford pivots upon Shakespeare, or is made to do so, and it is therefore not difficult to imagine Rogers’ beautiful little dwelling being erected here at the very time when Shakespeare was contemplating purchasing New Place, and the dramatist’s interest in it. Rogers, being, like John Shakespeare on the town council, must have been very closely acquainted with the family. The Rev. John Harvard, son of Robert and Katharine, emigrated to the New England States of America in 1637 and died of consumption the following year, at Charleston, leaving one half of his estate, which realised £779 17s. 2d., together with his library of over 300 volumes, to a college then in contemplation; the present Harvard University at Cambridge, Massachusetts, described as the oldest and among the richest seats of learning in the United States; although the “learning” displayed there has not yet hatched out any world-shaking genius; genius being, as we who visit Stratford cannot fail to see, a quality quite independent of the academies, and springing, fully-equipped to do battle with the world, in the most unpromising places.

It is not long since the Harvard House was restored and dedicated to the public, and particularly to the use of Harvard students; in October 1909, to be precise. It had passed through various hands, and finally was offered for sale by auction. The biddings failed to reach the reserve price and the property was withdrawn at £950. Chicago, in the person of a wealthy native of that place, came to the rescue, and it was privately bought for the purpose of converting it into a “house of call,” whatever that may be, for Americans touring this district, and especially, as already noted, for students of Harvard—who obtain admission free. Other persons pay sixpence.

It is a place of very great seclusion, for Harvard students (who mostly study the more lethal forms of football and baseball nowadays) are rare; and I guess if you want to track the Americans in Stratford, you must go to the Shakespeare Hotel, anyway, or to the “Red Horse.” The house was in the occupation of a firm of auctioneers and land agents until the purchase. The “restoration” of the exterior has been very carefully and conservatively done, and the interior discloses some particularly beautiful half-timbered rooms.

From time to time it seems good to amiable and well-meaning persons to set up “Shakespeare memorials” in Stratford, and it is equally amiable in the town to accept them. Thus we see in Rother Street an ornate gothic drinking-fountain and clock-tower, the “American Memorial Fountain,” given in 1887 by that wealthy Shakespearean collector, George W. Childs, proprietor of the Philadelphia Ledger. It includes also the function of a memorial of the first Victorian Jubilee. Shakespearean quotations adorn it, including the apposite one from Timon of Athens: “Honest water, which ne’er left man i’ th’ mire.”

But Shakespeare serves the turn of every man, and if you like your beer, you can set against this the equally Shakespearean quotation, “A quart of ale is a dish for a king.”