1613: Hall's Croft

    Hall’s Croft is a timber-framed building and its oldest parts date from 1613-1614. In ~1630, a free-standing kitchen was added at the rear of the building. Such a kitchen was common in the seventeenth century; being detached meant less risk of fire and avoided the smell of cooking from entering the main house. The kitchen was joined to the main house by 1650 when the original house was expanded. The house as it looks today is bigger than it would have been when Susanna and John lived there. It has had renovations and expansions over the years and is currently having conservation work done to it. (At least when I visited it in June 2025) Hall’s Croft gardens are vast and my personal favorite part of the building. When the Halls lived there, they likely would have had a range of medicinal plants for John Hall to use in his work as a physician.

    Hall’s Croft was the home of John Hall and Shakespeare’s daughter, Susanna Hall. They were married in 1607 and had one child, Elizabeth, born in 1608. The Halls moved into Hall’s Croft when it was newly built and only lived there for about 3 years. Shakespeare almost definitely visited Hall’s Croft to visit his daughter and granddaughter. After Shakespeare’s death in 1616, they moved into New Place, taking much of the original furniture with them. The rest of the furniture was claimed by their daughter Elizabeth who took it with her when she moved to Nash’s House. Because of this, none of the original furniture from Hall’s Croft has survived, except for a single spice grinder in the attic. After Shakespeare’s daughter and granddaughter left Hall’s Croft, it was left vacant for 10 years, until the Smith family bought it in 1617. It stayed a private home until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was turned into a school. It was known as Cambridge House School and was twice a boys’ school and once a girls’ college. The part of Hall’s Croft that was once a schoolroom is now a café and is where we did most of our lessons when we went to England in June 2025. It was purchased by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1949 because of its Shakespearean associations. 

Sinbad the cat, a current Hall's Croft resident :)