The Great Garden at New Place

A place in inspiration, a place of rest
New Place (previous blog) is, for me, an emotional place to be. On the whole I think the development there has been an imaginative success. To me is seems to be a place of inspiration with its quirky nooks and the roofline of the Guild Chapel, with its ancient wall paintings, looming over it. It is also a place of rest, somewhere I imagine Shakespeare would have appreciated given the death of his only son, Hamnet, one year before Shakespeare bought New Place. The house would’ve, I imagine, signalled a new beginning, a new leaf, a new page, a new act.

William, Fulke and Hercules
The family who sold New Place to Shakespeare have a shady history. William Underhill who did the original sale to Shakespeare in 1597 died two months after the sale. History tells us Underhill Senior was poisoned by his son and heir, Fulke (why does no-one name their son Fulke any more?) History is less sure whether Fulke died of natural causes or was hanged for the murder, but it was Fulke’s younger brother, the flamboyantly named Hercules who confirmed all the paperwork to Shakespeare including the orchards behind the property which became known as The Great Garden.

The Great Garden at New Place
In my own “olden days” (1980s and 1990s) The Great Garden was my favourite place to sit in Stratford-upon-Avon. It used to have open access to the public and was a green oasis in the midst of the tourist bustle. Now you enter the garden as part of your (paid) entry to New Place but, in my opinion, it remains a lush and evocative oasis. It is still populated with the offspring of a mulberry tree from Shakespeare’s day and with the ashes of Peggy Ashcroft and with benches to sit and dream. But it now also has a marvellous tactile bronze sculpture trail by American Gregg Wyatt.

Family weddings
Both Shakespeare’s daughters lived with Anne and William in New Place until they were married:

• Susanna, aged 24, to Dr John Hall on June 5th 1607
• Judith, aged 31, to (“bad boy”) Thomas Quiney on February 10th 1616

And one man in his time plays many parts
Shakespeare is known in 2017 primarily as

a PLAYWRIGHT and ACTOR

In his own time he gained most cultural prestige as a writer of narrative poems and sonnets

a POET

But he had the most influence on his immediate contemporary world as

a SHAREHOLDER and THEATRE OWNER
a LANDLORD and LANDOWNER
a BUSINESSMAN and GENTLEMAN

(having bought a family coat of arms in 1596)
But visiting Stratford-upon-Avon as I do a few times each year and delving into the depths of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust properties, the Shakespeare Institute and the work of the Royal Shakespeare Company, I never cease to learn something new about Shakespeare as

a SON and GRANDSON
a BROTHER
a SCHOOLBOY and TEENAGER
a LOVER and HUSBAND
a FATHER and GRANDFATHER
a RETIRED GENT

living and loving (and dreaming and writing) in New Place and its Great Garden until the day he died.

New Place

Hiding in plain sight
A recent visit to Stratford-upon-Avon revealed a few new angles I’d not fully appreciated before. Shakespeare’s final home, New Place, has in recent years been subjected to extensive archaeological exploration and refashioning for the modern age. Previously you had to enter through Nash’s House (next door) named after the Thomas Nash who married Shakespeare’s grand-daughter, Elizabeth Hall. Now you enter through a beautifully crafted wooden door in the same position as the original gatehouse.

Commuting to London
Germaine Greer’s superb Shakespeare’s Wife produced a brilliant account of the social history of Elizabethan and Jacobean domestic life in the Midlands. One of her central ideas demonstrates how many men in the Midlands would commute to London but live in smaller market towns like Stratford, especially in the winter. 375 years of traditional Shakespearean biographies have claimed that Shakespeare left Stratford for London and never went back until he retired. The evidence suggests otherwise. There is no reason to think Shakespeare was any different to other commuters. He only ever rented temporary lodgings in London.

Roots in Stratford
In his will Shakespeare named 25 beneficiaries. Of those, 21 were connected to his life in Stratford. He bought 107 acres of Stratford land for £302 in 1602 and three years later paid £480 for a share in the Stratford tithes, an annual tax from which he made £60 a year. These are not the actions of someone who didn’t feel he belonged to Warwickshire. Both his daughters married in Stratford and Greer’s biography of Anne Shakespeare (née Hathaway) (and the new archaeology at New Place) persuade me that Anne was a successful brewer and New Place was a thriving and productive hive of (potentially commercial) industry.

New Place
The biggest evidence that Shakespeare belonged to Stratford is of course New Place itself. It was the biggest house in the centre of town, built by the Clopton family in 1483. By the time Shakespeare bought it (for £120 – a schoolmaster’s annual salary was £20), the building had 10 fireplaces and a much greater number of rooms. The latest archaeology has been able to identify the house’s footprint and revealed it had three sides around a courtyard with a freshwater well. Facing the street was the gatehouse side with a long gallery above it; along Chapel Lane was the service block with a kitchen, laundry and brewery; and the main living block, including a Great Hall, angled slightly inwards, protected from the main street and with views over the gardens.

Warm at home, secure and safe
You’d think after at least 30 years of being a Shakespeare fanboy there’d be few surprises left for me. And yet…. if you put two and two together and realise that Shakespeare owned New Place for 19 years of his life (between 1597 and 1616 when he died) and for a good part of the year he lived there, it is inevitable that he would have done some of his writing there. I know this sounds obvious, but the prevailing impression has been that Shakespeare only wrote in garrets in London. Over half Shakespeare’s work was completed during the period he owned New Place. Writers write anywhere and everywhere. It’s inconceivable that his imagination didn’t soar and pour out at New Place.