Anne Hathaway’s Cottage

Thursday July 28
Having been assured by Janet that Bernard would be fine by himself for a couple of days, Roger and I left this morning and drove down to Stratford upon Avon just for an overnight. The only time I remember visiting Stratford was just stopping off for a couple of hours as a stopover on a journey years ago. It was a sunny weekend afternoon and it was so crowded. We got down there shortly before noon, and first visited Holy Trinity Church or “Shakespeare’s church”, since this was the place of his baptism marriage and burial. He is buried in the beautiful 15th century chancel, with his wife Anne Hathaway buried next to him, along with his eldest daughter Susannah. On the side wall is his funerary monument. There are some beautiful stained glass windows, and twenty six15th century misericords in the chancel, with religious, secular and mythical carvings. You can also see copies of the baptismal and burial records of Shakespeare. Next, we visited Anne Hathaways cottage, located a short distance out of Stratford in the village of Shottery, a beautiful thatched building set in a cottage garden. This is where Anne was born sometime around 1556, and it’s assumed she stayed there until her marriage to Shakespeare in 1582. Since she left, thirteen generations of Hathaways (over 368 years) have lived there, and the surrounding land was used as a working farm until well into the 19th century. We then walked through the town centre and along the river for a stretch, busy with pleasure boats, rowing boats, and many hungry swans and ducks! The poor grass around the canal basin was in a sad sorry state after the heat, lack of rain, and hundreds of pairs of feet walking across it. Then it was time to head out to our hotel, located a little way out of Stratford. It was a lovely place, with a great outdoor seating area, with beds of lavender around. Had it been a nice evening, it would have been a lovely place to enjoy a drink before dinner. However, it was an overcast evening and a little on the cool side, so we had it inside instead. We had a wonderful dinner - the food and service was excellent.
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