1480s: New Place

 

Photo credit: The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust

New Place was Shakespeare’s family home. Shakespeare's New Place was built in the 1480s by Hugh Clopton. It’s located in Chapel Street, across from the Guild Chapel and right near Shakespeare’s grammar school. During his career, Shakespeare traveled between Stratford-upon-Avon (where his family lived) and London (where he worked). Eventually he became an established and successful actor and playwright in London. In 1597, he purchased New Place from William Underhill for about £120. 

The "deed" to the house

Shakespeare spent time in New Place when he was in Stratford and retired there in his later years. After his death, his daughter Susanna and her husband John Hall moved into New Place with Anne, who would live there until her death in 1623. After their deaths, New Place was inherited by Shakespeare’s only grandchild, Elizabeth and her second husband John Barnard, though they didn’t live there. They lived instead at Abington Manor in Northamptonshire. When Elizabeth died childless in 1670, Shakespeare’s line of decent ended and the home became property of the Clopton family once again. They decided to remove Shakespeare’s New Place and build a new house on top of it. The house was completely demolished in 1759 by Reverend Francis Gastrell.         The house itself was the largest one in the area. It had a courtyard, 10 hearths for 20 to 30 rooms, and a large late-medieval Hall. It was a huge, impressive house. Shakespeare’s property deeds mention it had two gardens and two orchards. Today, the building is gone and on the spot where it was is a tree and a boulder. However, there are still gardens on the property. It features an Elizabethan-style knot garden with trellises from 1919-20. The four knots are in an intricate interweaving design of herbs and shrubs based on garden illustrations from Shakespeare’s time. 

The knot garden

There is also the Great Garden, where there’s a giant mulberry tree that was supposedly grown from a cutting taken from a tree planted by Shakespeare. 

The mulberry tree

 

Flowers in the Great Garden

The layout of the Great Garden today is the work of Ernest Law and horticulturist Ellen Willmott, done between 1918-1922. Around New Place today there are also sculptures inspired by Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. 

Statue engraved with the epilogue of The Tempest