{"id":244274,"date":"2026-01-18T05:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T05:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/244274\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T05:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T05:51:09","slug":"a-stroll-through-shakespeares-stratford-upon-avon-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/244274\/","title":{"rendered":"A stroll through Shakespeare\u2019s Stratford-upon-Avon \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It all started when Hamnet<\/a> was published in 2020. Maggie O\u2019Farrell<\/a>\u2019s award-winning novel \u2013 the fictional story of Shakespeare\u2019s son, believed to have died of the plague in Stratford-upon-Avon and to have inspired the play Hamlet \u2013 sent visitors to Stratford in their droves, determined to uncover the \u201creal\u201d story of Hamnet and his parents, William Shakespeare<\/a> and Anne Hathaway.<\/p>\n

With the film<\/a> of the book newly in cinemas and Oscar nominations for its Irish leads Paul Mescal<\/a> and Jessie Buckley<\/a> widely anticipated, Stratford-upon-Avon is readying itself for another onslaught of attention.<\/p>\n

Portrayed as a kind of forest sprite in the film, curled up in tree hollows with leaves in her hair, we first meet Hathaway wandering the woods with a hawk on her arm. A herbalist with psychic gifts, this is also Shakespeare\u2019s first sight of her as he sits trapped indoors, tutoring her brothers in Latin. So begins the love affair, brought to life with passion and credibility by Mescal and Buckley.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley on their new film Hamnet: \u2018I only want to make films as brave and as human as this\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

But Hamnet is not just the story of a man\u2019s love for a woman; it is also the deeply moving story of a mother\u2019s love for her child. I saw the film at a press screening during which several film critics \u2013 a hardened bunch \u2013 were openly sobbing beside me. Not just a tear, mind: sobbing.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Farrell\u2019s Hathaway, given blazing life by Buckley, is free-spirited and independent. It is she who urges William to go to London to seek his fortune on the stage, wise enough to know that small-town Stratford would never satisfy such an imagination.<\/p>\n

But O\u2019Farrell makes no bones about having invented the story of Hamnet, which as co-screenwriter with Chlo\u00e9 Zhao, she has translated to the screen with panache.<\/p>\n

So when visitors clamour to be shown the herb garden at Anne Hathaway\u2019s Cottage in Shottery, the guides reply: \u201cHow do you know she had a herb garden?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a pleasant walk through suburban Stratford to the cottage \u2013 down alleyways of high fences, past redbrick bungalows and a park. On reaching Shottery, it all turns distinctly more Elizabethan, with its village green, thatched cottages and a river babbling past Anne Hathaway\u2019s home \u2013 picture-perfect, with mullioned windows, orchard and gardens. Yet the cottage looks nothing like it would have done in Anne\u2019s time, say the guides, when the main building had just three rooms: a parlour, a kitchen and an open hall.<\/p>\n

Anne\u2019s brother Bartholomew made enough money to buy the house the Hathaways had originally rented and added a two-storey extension, expanding it to 10 rooms. Two centuries later, in the 1840s, a canny landlady and Hathaway descendant, Mary Baker, lived here. Noticing the growing numbers of visitors as Shakespeare\u2019s fame increased, she admitted tourists and reputedly sold off slices of \u201coriginal\u201d furniture, including \u201cShakespeare\u2019s courting settle\u201d, which you can still see there. Dated to the 1700s, it\u2019s clear Shakespeare never did any courting \u2013 or even sitting \u2013 on it, having died in 1616.<\/p>\n

\"Shakespeare'sShakespeare’s first folio \"Shakespeare'sShakespeare’s birthplace <\/p>\n

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust bought the house in 1892 and while Shakespeare\u2019s presence is felt here \u2013 there is, for example, a chair engraved with his coat of arms \u2013 it\u2019s harder to get a sense of Hathaway. Very little is known about her, beyond that she was born around 1556 and married William Shakespeare in 1582, a ceremony thought to have taken place at the 11th-century All Saints Church in Billesley.<\/p>\n

Parish records don\u2019t survive to confirm the wedding, but it is known that Shakespeare\u2019s granddaughter Elizabeth Barnard married there, leading to speculation she chose the same venue as her grandparents. It is also known that Hathaway was older than Shakespeare \u2013 26 to his 18 \u2013 and pregnant at the time of the marriage, facts faithfully covered in the film.<\/p>\n

The nearby manor house at Billesley is now a Marriott Bovey hotel. The medieval village of Billesley was wiped out by the Black Death \u2013 a reminder of the realities of life in Shakespeare\u2019s England, and of the world captured in Hamnet.<\/p>\n

After their marriage, Hathaway is believed to have lived with her husband\u2019s family in a specially constructed extension to the Shakespeare home on Henley Street, now Shakespeare\u2019s Birthplace, a charming 16th-century timber-framed building.<\/p>\n

The couple\u2019s first child, Susanna, was born in 1583; the twins, Judith and Hamnet, nearly two years later. In 1596, when he was 11, Hamnet died. A few years later, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. It is not inconceivable that the play was inspired by the death of his son. Both the book and the film point out that the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable at the time.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Farrell brings her formidable imagination to this trajectory, creating a heartbreaking ending in which Hamnet and Hamlet (played by brothers Jacobi and Noah Jupe) merge reality and art on the stage of The Globe. The scene is witnessed by Hathaway, and Buckley has described it as the culmination of \u201cthis ginormous, epic journey of the heart\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"ExteriorExterior of Shakespeare’s Schoolroom & Guildhall. Photograph: Sara Beaumont Photography \"JessieJessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in Hamnet. Photograph: Focus Features \"NewNew Place Garden <\/p>\n

But what of Hathaway herself \u2013 the woman behind these powerful emotions? What of her life, remaining in Stratford, grieving her son, as William returns to London?<\/p>\n

\u201cStratford would have been a very different place in Anne\u2019s time,\u201d says Dr Paul Edmondson, Local Studies Specialist for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. \u201cThe population was around 2,000 people, compared with over 30,000 today. It was very busy \u2013 a crossroads for Birmingham, Wales, Leicester and London.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1597, Shakespeare purchased New Place on Chapel Street, where Anne lived until her death in August 1623. Though the house vanished by the mid-1700s, the grounds remain. \u201cNew Place was a big home, with between 20 and 30 rooms,\u201d says Edmondson. \u201cAnne was responsible for running it. I imagine her as strong and confident.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standing in the gardens of New Place, I try to see her, this strong, confident woman. There are many negative stories about her. She isn\u2019t even graced with her married name, Shakespeare, instead being eternally recorded as Anne Hathaway. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of misogyny around Anne in Shakespeare\u2019s biographies,\u201d Edmondson says, pointing to Germaine Greer\u2019s \u201cexcellent\u201d book Shakespeare\u2019s Wife as bucking the trend.<\/p>\n

A short walk from New Place brings me to the banks of the Avon, where the Royal Shakespeare Company has made its home since 1961. The transformed Royaroyl Shakespeare Theatre reopened in 2010, offering plays, backstage tours and riverside dining. Across the road, The Arden Hotel is a good place to stay, its rooms overlooking the river and summer outdoor performances (B&B from \u00a3129, theardenhotelstratford.com<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"ArdenArden hotel \"TheThe river Avon <\/p>\n

It\u2019s said Shakespeare wrote in these gardens \u2013 but there is scarcely a garden or house in Stratford that doesn\u2019t claim that honour.<\/p>\n

To visit a room he definitely wrote in, you can take an interactive lesson with a slightly testy schoolmaster at the Shakespeare Schoolroom on Church Street, where the young William probably first heard the legends that inspired some of his plays.<\/p>\n

As anticipation builds for the Oscar nominations on January 22nd, meanwhile, Stratford is also bracing itself for another influx of visitors. \u201cWhile it\u2019s unclear how the release of Hamnet will impact visitor numbers, the potential is very exciting,\u201d says Darren Tosh of Shakespeare\u2019s England.<\/p>\n

For more information, visit shakespeares-england.co.uk<\/a>. Bernadette Fallon was a guest of The Arden Hotel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It all started when Hamnet was published in 2020. Maggie O\u2019Farrell\u2019s award-winning novel \u2013 the fictional story of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46,28402,1619,51340,17404,131144,30868],"class_list":{"0":"post-244274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-jessie-buckley","12":"tag-magazine","13":"tag-maggie-o-farrell","14":"tag-paul-mescal","15":"tag-royal-shakespeare-company","16":"tag-william-shakespeare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}