In the Theatre, the drop curtain of which—an interesting one by Beverley—illustrates Queen Elizabeth going in state to the opening of the Globe Theatre, are given annually during the week in which Shakespeare’s birthday comes representations of various of his plays. The building is also occasionally used by travelling dramatic companies.
In the Bancroft Gardens stands the statue and monument sculptured by Lord Ronald Gower, and presented by him, around the base of which are excellent figures of Prince Henry, Hamlet, Falstaff, and Lady Macbeth.
Linking the past with the present age of letters is the fact that in the fine old house in Church Street, called Mason’s Croft, resides Miss Marie Corelli, the writer and novelist, whose interest in the preservation of old buildings in Stratford and Shakespearian survivals is well known.
After the birthplace and perhaps Holy Trinity Church, there is no spot connected with Shakespeare so visited as Anne Hathaway’s traditional home at Shottery, distant about a mile from Stratford, just off the Alcester Road. Unhappily there is no satisfactory proof that the house was ever tenanted by Anne Hathaway’s parents, or that Anne herself was at Shottery at all. All that is certain is that the picturesque, half–timbered, and thatched dwelling to which so many pilgrims yearly journey was, about Shakespeare’s time, tenanted by one Richard Hathaway, who was the head of one of the three families of the same surname resident in the district. On his death his property was divided, and in bequeathing certain sums of money to his children he mentioned three daughters by name, of whom an Agnes was one. This name was at that period often the equivalent of Anne. In his will one Thomas Whittington, a shepherd of Stratford, is mentioned as a creditor, and later on in Whittington’s will appears a bequest to the poor of the town of Stratford of eleven shillings lying “in the hand of Anne Shaxpere, wyfe unto Mr. Wyllyam Shaxpere, and is due debt unto me.” The witnesses of the poet’s marriage bond also appear in Richard Hathaway’s will, one as witness and the other as supervisor. These facts, although, it must be admitted, by no means proving that Anne Hathaway was the daughter of the occupier of the cottage, formerly a considerable farmhouse, are certainly evidence of some weight in favour of the tradition. The property was acquired by the trustees of the birthplace in 1892, and this fact has, of course, conferred a certain imprimatur of authenticity upon the building.
Much more of interest might be written of this fascinating town which, although the resort of so many thousands from all parts of the world almost the year through, yet seems without effort to preserve an atmosphere even in these modern times not altogether out of keeping with the bygone age in which its most famous son lived. To whatever cause, whether commercial or otherwise, this lingering savour of romance and of past times is due, those who value antiquities, and who revel in memorials of the days gone by, may be unfeignedly grateful.
CHAPTER XII
A GROUP OF SHAKESPEARE’S VILLAGES
Around Stratford lie grouped quite a number of villages which Shakespeare undoubtedly knew and visited, and possibly described in one or other of his plays and poems. Great as is the attraction of Stratford itself to many, there will be also pleasurable interests found in the old–world villages which lie within easy distance. In them and about them, indeed, there still lingers much of the “atmosphere” of Shakespearian times, and in travelling to them along winding roads and leafy by–ways one breathes the wider air of the Feldon and Arden, and from the summits of their little hills can catch glimpses of the district which Speed, not altogether unwarrantably, referred to as another Eden. In the fields still toil peasants little differing, in the more retired spots, in mode of life from those who toiled in Shakespeare’s days, gathering the harvest of peas in autumn, or sowing them in spring. Some, of course, who garner the peas are merely birds of passage, wayside toilers, here to–day and gone to–morrow; but many others are natives of the place or neighbourhood in which they dwell, speaking with much the same voices and phraseology as the peasants of Shakespeare’s time.