Stratford-UPON-AVON

YOU CAN’T GO anywhere in Stratford without being performed at. In the garden of Shakespeare’s birthplace three costumed performers accost visitors, asking them to name one of his plays. They then declaim a speech from memory for you.

Guests pass through this garden to reach the house from which John Shakespeare ran his glove-making enterprise in Stratford. The ground floor living room is decorated with vividly printed cloth, which was known as ‘poor man’s tapestry’. Shakespeare Senior wasn’t poor, but he was not the gentleman his son became. When William returned to Stratford in 1610, he arranged for a coat of arms to be granted to his father, which meant that henceforth the Shakespeares could carry swords.

John’s workshop for making gloves lies off the living room via a small passageway. It’s been reconstructed as it might have looked in ather s.