The Stratford town walk is excellent. It's only £6 and worth every penny. Literally, in fact, because they give you 6 coupons that can be used all over town to redeem that cost. More importantly, you'll gain knowledge, history, stories and conversations that are priceless.
The group I joined was so large that they called another tour guide and quickly spilt us into two groups. My group had about 20 people in it. Half of the group was a reunion of old friends and colleagues that had worked together in Bangalore, India.
We started at a fountain in the very centre of Stratford. Margot was our guide and she was excellent. She rattled off 15 minutes of Shakespeare and Stratford facts to start the day. I'll put a few of them here. Most of all, she was funny, articulate, passionate and easily connected to all kinds of people.
- 1564 Shakespeare birth
- 400 AD Stratford started
- Romans then Saxons, first bridge - strat means street, ford means crossing
- Avon is the name of the river
- 1100 Robin Hood started a market with permission from the King
- There's "New town" and "old town"
- RSc Royal Shakespeare company
- RST Royal Shakespeare theatre
- David Garrick made Shakespeare famous
- First theatre flooded washed away
- 1800 stone theatre built, burned in 1930
- 3rd theatre was designed in a competition, it looks like a ship
- Sister of the winner designed the red phone box
- Backstage tour highly recommended (I'll try it next time)
You'll immediately notice the black and white buildings all over town. Margot explained that some are authentic, some are fake, and some are somewhere in between (maybe started real then updated over time). Bowed wood is a sign of authenticity, they were painted black and white during Victorian time. They thought the brown and tan wasn't as beautiful as black and white. The wood looks uneven on authentic buildings and the bricks are smaller Elizabethian bricks (about half the height we're used to seeing).
We learned about his family, faster than I could even write. His fathers business did very well but had a few tough times. At age 14, William was taken out of school to help his father's leather business. At 18 married he Anne Hathaway, she was already pregnant and a lot older. Then they had twins 2 years later. Then there are 6 years where we don't have records, the guess is he went with traveling actors in London. He sent money to the family who was still living in Stratford. At 28 or 29 he was mending scripts, copyright law didn't exist then, so it was common for everyone to copy and modify each other, it was even expected. Now it's a little hard to know exactly who wrote what, she said to think of it a bit like writing a scene of a sitcom today - it's done quickly, in passing, and modified on the fly.
The house became an inn for awhile, then 200 years of dilapidation whilst it wasn't cared for, then Barnum (from the states) wanted it, so Charkes Dickens jumped in and bought it.
Many of the street names are literally. Corn road was used to sell corn. Sheep lane had sheep. Cooks Alley used to be a shared oven. People didn't have their own oven, so they prepped at home, then walked it over to cooks alley. This is where "prick it, mark it w a b, put it in oven for baby and me" comes from. You had to mark your pie somehow so you knew which one was yours.
One of the buildings is known as Harvard house. It comes from John Harvard, and it is currently owned by his Harvard University. Interesting to see that connection here.
"We won't make windows into men's souls." Queen Elisabeth said this at a time when most people were uneducated and couldn't read or write. The overwhelming belief was that God would judge you, and you'd go to heaven or hell, religion was extremely important and required by law. Generations were told to be Protestant for a long time, then Catholic for a long time. Lots of conflict, wars and death were the result. Queen Elisabeth may have been the very first to say "it's up to you and you won't be punished". She let people choose their religion. Huge!
By 33, Shakespeare was rich, but not from writing plays. He was rich from buying and selling property.
Women didn't got to school at the time of Shakespeare. Boys went from 7am to 6pm, 6 days a week. Church on Sunday. They brought their own wood for heat, and they were beaten if they didn't know their lesson.
There's some drama and politics surrounding Shakespeare's money. He willed his money to his daughter Susanna and John Hall (her husband, I think). I vaguely recall something about one of his daughters marrying someone that quickly fell out of grace, so there were challenges there.
As I reflect, I learned a lot about heaven and hell, religion, and our limited understanding of the human body. As recent as Shakespeare's time, they truly believed the human body was magical and mystical. Maybe it is :) The guide mentioned "being out of humor", which had to do with their belief that the body had 4 humors and they all needed to be aligned to be healthy. It struck me that given those beliefs, along with religion and education, it was strategically better to be quiet than outspoken. You were likely to get killed or brutally punished if you weren't like everyone else. Being killed was a double whammy in those days because then your body couldn't be seen to be judged for heaven or hell!
I can't help but wonder, how much of that "be quiet or be killed" fear still exists today? Is this why it is quite common to "go along with the flow" and "keep your head down"? I wonder, are we arriving at the dawn of "Time for us all to excel, individually and collectively, as much or as little as each of us want to". Clearly I need a more succinct way to say that :)
Back to Shakespeare, his church was built in 1260s, but mostly finished in the 1300s. He spent every Sunday here other than the few years in London. There's another building he spent a lot of time in called new place, I think it's the house he built, but it was torn down by what Margot calls a "miserable man".
Here's an example of how much the world changed in Shakespeare's lifetime, his birth certificate was in Latin, his death certificate is in English. He's buried at the altar of his church with his closest family not because he was famous or religious, but because of his money.
Here's a fun fact that's somewhat highly debated. Shakespeare was supposedly asked to translate the bible from Latin to English. If you read psalm 46, the 46th word is shake and the 46th word from the end is spear. He was 46 years old when he was given the task.
Graves and bones used to be moved to make room for new graves. When they did that, they'd have a bone fire, or now, a bonfire. This is important because that's exactly what Shakespeare chose to address on his tombstone. He basically curses anyone that tries to move his bones.
Like many churches, when you walk outside, you can't help but notice the perfectly aligned trees along the sidewalk. There are 12 trees on each side, representing the 12 apostles. If you look closely, there's always one tree that's a bit further back than the others, that's supposed to represent Judas, or so I'm told. This is how it looks at Shakespeare's church.
I found it all to be fascinating. I've googled some of it to learn other perspectives as well. To me, Stratford had a very nice feel, you can walk the whole town, the water is there, people are nice, buildings are beautiful. I'd say it's quite a romantic area!
