Warwickshire: The Land of Shakespeare

by Clive Holland

BIDFORD BRIDGE.

Only the site, and garden, and a few traces of the foundations of New Place, Shakespeare’s home in his latter years, remain. Nothing of the mansion originally erected for Sir Hugh Clopton has been left standing. The fact that it was probably the most imposing residence in the town in Shakespeare’s time affords interesting evidence of the prosperity which undoubtedly came to him from his companies of players and the performance of his plays. On acquiring the property of New Place, Shakespeare made considerable alterations to fit it to his requirements and ideas; the house at this time having two gardens attached to it, one small and one larger. It is probable that the famous mulberry tree, which was in all likelihood one of a considerable number distributed through the Eastern Counties and Midlands by a Frenchman of the name of Verton or Verdon in 1609, was planted by the poet in the smaller garden. Of the great garden Shakespeare made an orchard, and in it there is some evidence that he passed much of his time. Prior to the year 1609 the house was occupied by one Thomas Greene, Town Clerk of Stratford, who claimed cousinship with the poet; and after the latter’s death in 1616 the property descended to his married daughter, Mrs. Hall, and here in 1643 she entertained Henrietta Maria, consort of Charles I.

After passing through several hands the house and property came into the possession in 1753 of the Rev. Francis Gastrell, Vicar of Frodsham, in Cheshire. This event afterwards proved to be fraught with disastrous consequences, for the Vicar, cursed with a violent and selfish disposition, soon began a work of destruction upon the Shakespearian relics, which unhappily for posterity he had acquired. Angered by the frequency with which travellers, admirers of the poet, and antiquarian students applied to him for permission to view the celebrated mulberry tree, in the shade of which Sir Hugh Clopton in 1742 is by tradition stated to have entertained David Garrick, Dr. Delany, and Macklin, he proceeded to cut it down. This was in itself an act of vandalism which would have earned for him an unenviable notoriety for all time; but far worse was to follow. It appears that during a portion of each year Gastrell was obliged to be absent, ministering to his flock at Frodsham. The Stratford local authorities were (from his point of view) unreasonable enough to expect him to pay his rates all the same. Resenting their action and to show his anger he promptly had New Place demolished, and the materials of which it was constructed sold! Thus vanished for ever, in the act of a maniacal priest, a building only second in interest and archæological value to the birthplace itself, leaving but the site and a few traces of the foundations remaining.

In addition to the Shakespearian dwellings we have described, there are a considerable number of domestic buildings and fragments in Stratford of interest as architectural survivals, but with which there is no space to deal here. The curious and the serious student of Shakespeare’s town will have little difficulty and much pleasure in discovering them.

Exactly opposite New Place, on the other side of Chapel Lane, are the old Guild Hall and Guild Chapel. The latter anciently the Chapel of the Guild of the Holy Cross. This organisation, like some of those of Coventry and other places, was partly religious and partly secular in character. Although it was certainly in existence in the reign of Edward I. the actual date of its foundation is unknown. The ancient governing body of the Guild consisted of two aldermen and six Councillors, who were fined fourpence if they failed to attend its meetings. The annual subscription in 1389 was sixpence, and admission to the Guild was made upon payment of an entrance fee, which varied in amount according to whether the applicant was married or single. There were social feasts at various times during the year, more especially at Easter–tide, and the existing records of these form a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the habits and manners of those far distant times.

That Stratford could not in those early days have been a place of great resource or importance is made clear by the fact that it was necessary to obtain supplies for these Guild festivities from outside, and keep the live stock, pigs, fowls, sheep, goats, etc. alive in charge of the Guild until required.

By the middle of the thirteenth century the Guild had prospered to such a degree that in 1269 it obtained a license from the then Bishop of Worcester to build a chapel and hospital. The present Guild Chapel is the one erected during the earlier part of the fifteenth century, on the site of the original building. The nave was rebuilt in 1292, in Henry VII.’s reign, by Sir Hugh Clopton. On the exterior of the porch are four shields bearing the arms of Sir Hugh Clopton, those of the city of London (of which he was Lord Mayor), those of the merchants of the Woolstaple, and the remaining shield bearing what are thought to be the original arms of Stratford. Early in the nineteenth century a series of frescoes were discovered in the chapel, which were promptly whitewashed over or otherwise destroyed; fortunately, however, not before one Thomas Fisher had made a series of drawings, which in some measure permits us to realise the character of the pictures; the subjects were “The Doom,” “The History of the Holy Cross,” “The Combat between St. George and the Dragon,” and “The Martyrdom of St. Thomas of Canterbury.” A fragment of a fresco (a figure with mutilated legs bearing a shield) is discernible on the west of the arch of the inner door.

With this building Shakespeare must have been well acquainted when a boy, and also as a man. Whilst resident at New Place he, in all probability, attended it, as there was a pew attached to the property. Not only is this small building interesting as a survival of a bygone age, but as intimately connected with at least two portions of Shakespeare’s life—boyhood, and his later years of residence in the town of his birth.

Another building of great and enduring interest is the Guild Hall, an ancient, half–timbered structure standing on the south side of the chapel, and built in 1296 by Robert de Stratford, but greatly altered during the fifteenth century. It was erected for the use of the members of the Guild, and after the dissolution of that body it was granted by Edward VI. in 1553 to the principal inhabitants, and was later on used for the purposes of a Town Hall, until the present one was erected in 1768 on the site of a previous building. In 1890, at the south end, underneath the wainscot, some traces of frescoes were discovered in the plaster panels. The centre one contains a representation of the Crucifixion, with the Virgin on one side and a figure (probably St. John) on the other. In the other panels are coats of arms. It was in this hall that Shakespeare most probably first became acquainted with “stage plays” and players, and not, as some suppose, at Kenilworth, for it was here that travelling companies, invited by the bailiff and aldermen of the town, used to give performances. The first of these of which a record exists visited the town in 1569; subsequently the companies of the Earls of Leicester, Worcester, and Warwick all gave performances at Stratford; that of the first named in 1587, the year in which Shakespeare is supposed to have gone to London in their company.