Passing through Old Town into Church Street, the fine Elizabethan three-gabled residence seen on the way, on the right hand, is Hall’s Croft, the home of Dr. John Hall, Susanna Shakespeare’s husband, before they removed to New Place following upon Shakespeare’s death. The old mulberry-tree in the beautiful garden at the back of the house is said to have been planted by her.
CHAPTER VI
Shakespeare’s Birthplace—Restoration, of sorts—The business of the Showman—The Birthplace Museum—The Shakespearean garden.
To Henley Street most visitors to Stratford-on-Avon first turn their steps; a little disappointed to discover that it is by no means the best street in the town and must have been rather a poor outskirt at the time when John Shakespeare came in from Snitterfield, to set up business in a small way. There is, as the sentimental pilgrim will very soon discover for himself, a plentiful lack of sentiment nowadays in the business of showing Shakespeare’s Birthplace. For it is a business, and conducted as it is on extremely hard-headed lines, yields a considerable profit; a profit disposed of strictly according to the terms on which the Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust is defined in its Parliamentary powers. Enough has already been said to show the sensitive soul that his sensibilities are apt to be extremely tried when he comes this way; but then, to be sure, there can be but a small proportion of such among the 40,000 persons who annually pay their sixpences (and another to see the Birthplace Museum next door). Sometimes, when the dog-star rages and tourists most do gad about, a solid phalanx of visitors, each provided with his ticket from the office down the street, will be found lined up, waiting, like the queues outside the London theatres, for earlier arrivals to be quickly disposed of. The bloom of sentiment, as delicate as that upon a plum or peach, is rudely rubbed off by these things, by rules and regulations and the numbered ticket; but the very fame of Shakespeare and the increasing number of visitors who have, or think they have—or at the very least of it think they ought to have—an intelligent interest in a great man’s birthplace brings about this horrid nemesis of the professional showman.
If you be a little exacting, and would keep the full freshness, the sweetest savour of hero-worship, be content not to see the Birthplace, and especially not that garden at the back of it. It was not, you know it quite well, in the least like this when John Shakespeare lived here and had his wool-store next door, where the Birthplace Museum is now, and sometimes bought and sold corn or carried on the trade of glover. The place has had so many changes of fortune, the appearance of the exterior itself has been so utterly changed and so conjecturally restored, that the thinking man loses a good deal of confidence. And the interior: the rooms without furniture or sign of habitation are like a body whence the soul has fled.
The building did not, for one thing, stand alone as it does now, the houses on either side having been pulled down after it was purchased in 1848; with the, of course, entirely admirable idea of the better lessening its risk from fire. The effect, and that of the hedges with their hairpin railings, is to give the place the very superior appearance of a private house. If old John Shakespeare could be summoned back and taken for a walk along Henley Street, he would be surprised at many things, but by none more than by the odd disappearance of every man’s midden and the altered appearance of his own house. He would wonder what had become of his shop, and assume no doubt that the occupier had made his fortune and retired into private life. He would not know that it is still a place of business, and among the best-paying ones in Stratford, too.
William Shakespeare succeeded to the property of his father, and in his turn willed this Henley Street dwelling-house to his sister, Joan Hart, for life. She had become a widow a few days only before his death, but herself survived until 1646. The woolshop—now the Museum part—he left to his daughter Susanna, who on the death of her aunt came into possession of all the building. At her decease, being the last descendant of her father, she willed it to Thomas Hart, the grandson of her aunt, Joan Hart. From him it descended to his brother George, who in his own lifetime gave it to his son, Shakespeare Hart, whose widow passed it on to another George Hart, nephew of her late husband. In 1778 George was gathered to his fathers and Thomas, his son, reigned in his stead; in 1793 leaving what had been the woolshop to his son John and the Birthplace to his son Thomas, who three years later made over his share to his brother John. On the death of this person in 1800 the property passed to his wife for the remainder of her life, and then to his three children, as co-partners. Since early in the eighteenth century it had been mortgaged up to the hilt, and the three partners were practically obliged to sell in 1806. Thus the last remote link with Shakespeare’s kin was severed. Thomas Court, the purchaser, died in 1818, and on the death of his wife in 1847 the house was purchased by public subscription, on behalf of the nation. This transaction was completed in the following year, at a cost of £3000, the purchase being in 1866 handed over to the Corporation of Stratford-on-Avon, who held it in trust until the incorporation of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1891.