Finding Shakespeare's New Place: An archaeological biography

By Paul Edmondson, Kevin Colls and William Mitchell

This ground-breaking book provides an abundance of fresh insights into Shakespeare's life in relation to his lost family home, New Place. The findings of a major archaeological excavation encourage us to think again about what New Place meant to Shakespeare and, in so doing, challenge some of the long-held assumptions of Shakespearian biography. New Place was the largest house in the borough and the only one with a courtyard. Shakespeare was only ever an intermittent lodger in London. His impressive home gave Shakespeare significant social status and was crucial to his relationship with Stratford-upon-Avon.

Archaeology helps to inform biography in this innovative and refreshing study which presents an overview of the site from prehistoric times through to a richly nuanced reconstruction of New Place when Shakespeare and his family lived there, and beyond. This attractively illustrated book is for anyone with a passion for archaeology or Shakespeare.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Sep 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781526106513

Book preview

Finding Shakespeare’s New Place

Image:logo is missing

Finding Shakespeare’s New Place

An archaeological biography

Paul Edmondson, Kevin Colls and William Mitchell

Manchester University Press

Copyright © Paul Edmondson, Kevin Colls and William Mitchell 2016

The right of Paul Edmondson, Kevin Colls and William Mitchell to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by Manchester University Press

Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data applied for

ISBN 978 1 5261 0649 0 paperback

First published 2016

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset by Out of House Publishing

Contents

List of figures

List of plates

Foreword by Michael Wood

Acknowledgements

Note on the text

Introduction: finding Shakespeare’s New Place

Paul Edmondson, Kevin Colls and William Mitchell

1Ancient beginnings: the site of New Place from the prehistoric to the early medieval period

William Mitchell and Kevin Colls

2The origins of New Place: Hugh Clopton’s ‘grete house’ of c. 1483

William Mitchell and Kevin Colls

3Shakespeare and Stratford-upon-Avon, 1564–96

Paul Edmondson

4Shakespeare and New Place, 1597–1616, and later occupants to 1677

Paul Edmondson

5A reconstruction of Shakespeare’s New Place

Kevin Colls, William Mitchell and Paul Edmondson

6After Shakespeare: New Place, 1677–1759

Kevin Colls and William Mitchell

7The archaeologies of New Place

Kevin Colls and William Mitchell

Closing remarks

Paul Edmondson, Kevin Colls and William Mitchell

Glossary of archaeological and architectural terms

William Mitchell and Kevin Colls

The Dig for Shakespeare Academic Advisory Board archaeologists and volunteers

Index

Figures

1.1 Neolithic artefact recovered from the site. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

1.2 Map of Stratford-upon-Avon and the immediate region, showing location of prehistoric, Roman and Saxon sites. Copyright Kevin Colls.

1.3 Archaeological plan showing the Iron Age archaeology identified across the site. Copyright Kevin Colls.

1.4 Artistic reconstruction of the site during the Iron Age period. Copyright Kevin Sturdy.

1.5 The main concentration of the Iron Age grain storage pits. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

1.6 Map of Stratford-upon-Avon showing the site in relation to the open field systems that were in use before town planning and the laying of the burgage plots in the late twelfth century. Copyright Kevin Colls.

1.7 Map of Stratford-upon-Avon in the late thirteenth century, showing the layout of the burgage plots and markets. Copyright Kevin Colls.

1.8 Archaeological plan showing the thirteenth-century features identified across the site. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

1.9 Archaeological plan showing the fourteenth-century features identified across the site. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

1.10 A large, deep, stone foundation dating to the late thirteenth century. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

1.11 Pit 12. Reused stone roof tiles were used in conjunction with clay to line the pit. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.1 Schematic ground- and first-floor plan of Hugh Clopton’s fifteenth-century New Place, based on historical research and archaeological data. Copyright Kevin Colls.

2.2 Archaeological plan showing all of the fifteenth-century features identified across the site. Copyright Kevin Colls.

2.3 Hugh Clopton’s New Place. Copyright Phillip Watson.

2.4 Guidance plan 1: location of the front range. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.5 Lead bale or cloth seals recovered from the site. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.6 Guidance plan 2: location of the cellar. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.7 Stone cellar wall foundation (F5) from Clopton’s New Place. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.8 Guidance plan 3: location of the front courtyard. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.9 Courtyard well (well 1) from Clopton’s New Place, as sketched by Halliwell-Phillipps in the 1860s. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, OS/Fol/87/3. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

2.10 Guidance plan 4: location of the passage. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.11 Guidance plan 5: location of the hall. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.12 The stone foundations for the northern wall of the hall. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.13 The stone foundations for a probable bay window located on the western wall of the hall. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.14 Guidance plan 6: location of the buttery/bake-house. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.15 Guidance plan 7: location of the pantry. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.16 An oven located in the service rooms of Clopton’s hall. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.17 Guidance plan 8: location of the kitchen/brew-house. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.18 A stone-built feature located in the service rooms of Clopton’s hall. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.19 The archaeology within the kitchen/brew-house area of Clopton’s New Place. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.20 Close-up photograph showing the stone and cobble surfaces in the kitchen/brew-house. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.21 Guidance plan 9: location of a possible parlour. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.22 Guidance plan 10: location of the rear entrance and courtyard. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.23 A small section of worked bone with a shallow groove carved on the inner circumference, thought to be part of a spectacle frame. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.24 Map of Stratford-upon-Avon in the late fifteenth to early sixteenth century. Copyright Kevin Colls.

2.25 The ground-floor schematic of New Place (top left) in comparison with three other examples of courtyard house plans. Copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.26 Gainsborough Old Hall in Lincolnshire. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2.27 Showing the close resemblance of the hall and service rooms of New Place and Hams Barton in Devon. Copyright Kevin Colls.

2.28 The Commandery in Worcester. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

3.1 Detail of a mid-sixteenth-century wall-painting in the White Swan. Photo and copyright Paul Edmondson.

3.2 The Clopton Bridge. Early-nineteenth-century watercolour from the notebooks of Captain James Saunders. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

3.3 The almshouses, Church Street, and the Guild Chapel. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 1996/90. Photo Malcolm Davies. Copyright the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

3.4 The Upper Guildhall. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

3.5 The Market Cross, or High Cross. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER1/109/3, fol. 72c. Early-nineteenth-century watercolour from the notebooks of Captain James Saunders. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

3.6 Chapel Street showing the Falcon. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 2002/97/1. Photo Malcolm Davies. Copyright the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

3.7 The Collegiate Church of the Undivided Holy Trinity, by Joseph Greene, mid-eighteenth-century. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER1/28/5. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

3.8 Guild Chapel wall-paintings of St Helen, drawn by Thomas Fisher, 1804. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER1/27. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

3.9 Guild Chapel wall-painting of the Last Judgement, drawn by Thomas Fisher, 1804. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER1/27. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

3.10 The schoolmaster’s desk. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, L449, SC19/1/F149. The borough collection. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

3.11 Title-page of Lily’s Latin textbook. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, SR96/LIL/8142027. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

3.12 Eighteenth-century portrait of Nicholas Rowe. Private collection, reproduced by permission of the owner. Photo Andrew Thomas.

3.13 Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton. Attributed to John de Critz the Elder (1551/52–1642), c . 1593. Reproduced by kind permission of The Cobbe Collection, Hatchlands Park. Copyright The Cobbe Collection.

3.14 Shakespeare’s coat of arms, 1910. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, DR769. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.1 The College. Engraved by F. Eginton from a drawing by Robert Bell Wheler for his History of Antiquities of Stratford-upon-Avon (1806). Reproduced by kind permission of Stanley Wells.

4.2 Thomas Rogers’s house on High Street. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.3 Exemplification of New Place fine, 1597. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER27/4a. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.4 A plan showing Shakespeare’s land ownership superimposed over a version of the Board of Health map from 1851, based on a map produced by Robert Bearman for K. Colls and W. Mitchell, Dig for Shakespeare Project report for the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (unpublished). Copyright Kevin Colls.

4.5 Richard Quiney’s letter to Shakespeare, 1598, ( a ) outside; ( b ) inside. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER27/4. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.6 The Chesterfield portrait of William Shakespeare. Attributed to Pieter Borsseler (c. 1660–1728), c. 1679. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 167/3. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.7 A mid-sixteenth-century drinking bowl, silver gilt, c . 1540. STRST: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, L1995/1, from the collection at Charlecote Park. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.8 An English swept-hilt rapier, c . 1610. STRST: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 1993/28. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.9 Late-sixteenth- or early-seventeenth-century seal ring. STRST: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 1868/3/274. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.10 Shakespeare’s memorial bust in Holy Trinity Church. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.11 Shakespeare’s gravestone, Holy Trinity Church. Photo and copyright Paul Edmondson.

4.12 Title-page of A mervaylous discourse vpon the lyfe, deedes, and behaviours of Katherine de Medicis, Queene mother , 1575. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, SR93.2. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.13 A portrait that has been thought to be Dame Elizabeth Barnard, or Elizabeth, Lady Barnard (1608–70), c . 1690–1700. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 1994-19/105. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.14 A portrait that has been thought to be Sir John Barnard (1605–74), c . 1690. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 1994/19/106. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

4.15 Portrait of Sir Edward Walker (1612–77). William Dobson (1611–46), c. 1645. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

5.1 A drawing of Shakespeare’s House. George Vertue (1684–1756), 1737. British Library, MS Portland Loan 29/246, p. 18. Reproduced by permission of the British Library Board.

5.2 The Shakespeare Hotel, Chapel Street. Photo and copyright Paul Edmondson.

5.3 The Tudor House, Long Itchington, Warwickshire. Photo and copyright Tara Hamling.

5.4 A drawing of Shakespeare’s New Place, 1737. George Vertue (1684–1756), annotated by Kevin Colls. British Library, MS Portland Loan 29/246, p. 18. Reproduced by permission of the British Library Board. Annotations copyright Kevin Colls.

5.5 The long gallery at Little Moreton Hall, Cheshire. Photo and copyright the National Trust.

5.6 Abraham Sturley’s wall-decoration in 5–6 Wood Street. Photo and copyright Paul Edmondson (by kind permission of George Pragnell Ltd).

5.7 Archaeological plan depicting the likely renovations completed by Shakespeare. Copyright Kevin Colls.

5.8 The alteration of the screens-passage wall completed during Shakespeare’s occupancy. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

5.9 The new foundations for a possible staircase close to the kitchen area of New Place. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

5.10 The brick tank from the Knot Garden. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

5.11 Removal of the cottages along Chapel Lane by Halliwell-Phillipps in 1862 with elements of Shakespeare’s barns. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, A16. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

5.12 Artistic reconstruction of New Place, northeast view. Copyright Phillip Watson.

5.13 Artistic reconstruction of New Place, southwest view. Copyright Phillip Watson.

5.14 Artistic reconstruction of New Place, north view. Copyright Phillip Watson.

5.15 Artistic reconstruction of New Place, southeast view. Copyright Phillip Watson.

5.16 Artistic reconstruction of New Place courtyard, detail. Copyright Phillip Watson.

5.17 A courtyard pit. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

5.18 Nuremberg token. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

5.19 Bone tuning peg for a musical instrument. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

5.20 A knife with a bone handle attributed to the Shakespearian period, found during Halliwell-Phillipps’s excavations of 1862. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, OS/Fol/87/3. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

5.21 A glass jug attributed to the Shakespearian period. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, OS/Fol/87/3. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

5.22 A key recovered from New Place. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, OS/Fol/87/3. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

5.23 Piece of coloured glass thought to have originated from Shakespeare’s New Place. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, OS/Fol/87/3. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

5.24 A seventeenth-century oak-and-walnut panel-back armchair. STRST: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 2002/49. Photo Andrew Thomas. Copyright the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

5.25 An early-sixteenth-century ecclesiastical chair from the collection of the Stratford Festival, Ontario. Photo and copyright Paul Edmondson.

6.1 Portrait of Sir Hugh Clopton (1671–1751). Thomas Murray (1663–1735), 1724. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 1993/31/214. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

6.2 Sketch by Halliwell-Phillipps of the New Place built in 1702, based on a drawing made by Samuel Winter in 1759. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, OS/Fol/87/3. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

6.3 Archaeological plan of the 1702 New Place. Copyright Kevin Colls.

6.4 The 1702 New Place cellar wall as identified in test pits with rendering intact. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

6.5 The 1702 New Place main internal cellar foundations. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

6.6 Oven flue in the Knot Garden from the eighteenth-century house. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

6.7 Lime-burning pit. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

6.8 Sketch of the 1702 New Place sketch showing frontage with annotation. Copyright Kevin Colls.

6.9 Clopton House, near Stratford-Upon-Avon. Water-colour by R. B. Wheler, 1825. Shakespeare Trust, ER1/109/1, fol. 21. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

6.10 A photograph of Mason Croft, Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, SC8/35215. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

6.11 Stratford Prep School/Old Croft School. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

6.12 Bishop’s Palace, Lichfield. Copyright William Salt Library.

6.13 Eighteenth-century miniature portrait of the Rd Francis Gastrell. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 1994/19/357. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

6.14 Samuel Winter’s map of Stratford, dated 1759. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.1 The Great Garden in 1844. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, PD CF Green 1844. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.2 New Place in 1847 by W. J. Linton. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER1/49. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.3 New Place in 1851 by C. Graf. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER1/28/6, fol. 19. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.4 Stratford-upon-Avon Board of Health map of 1851. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, BRT7/9/8. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.5 James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820–89), c . 1863. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, PC/93/2/HAL. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.6 Plan of the site purchased by Halliwell-Phillipps in 1861. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER23/2/35. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.7 New Place site in 1856. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER1/49. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.8 The Halliwell-Phillipps excavations at New Place, 1864. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, DR1067/3. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.9 Sketch showing the archaeological excavations at New Place. Rook and Co., London, 1864. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, P87/3/ROC. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.10 Plan of the site created by Halliwell-Phillipps after his excavations, 1864. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, OS/Fol/87/3. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.11 Remains of the 1702 cellar foundations, encased in brick boxes by Halliwell-Phillipps in 1862. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

7.12 New Place in 1877 after Halliwell-Phillipps’s excavations. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, SC14/2065. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.13 Sketch of the rebuilt well by W. Hallsworth Waite, 1897. Published by J. L. Allday. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.14 Sketch of the excavations published by Halliwell-Phillipps, 1864. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, OS/Fol/87/3. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.15 1886 Ordnance Survey map of Stratford-upon-Avon, depicting New Place. Copyright Ordnance Survey. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.16 A knot garden such as that constructed in 1919–20 at New Place. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.17 Stone structure towards the eastern part of the New Place site, identified during excavations in the 1920s. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

7.18 The Dig for Shakespeare volunteers excavating the site of New Place. Testimonials from Alistair Galt and Nick Lister. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

7.19 The Dig for Shakespeare volunteers excavating the site of New Place. Testimonials from Ellis Powell-Bevan and Louise Dodd. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

7.20 Visitors engaging with the ‘live’ Dig for Shakespeare Project at New Place. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

7.21 Art piece completed by Adrian Spaak, Dig for Shakespeare volunteer and artist. Copyright Adrian Spaak.

Plates

The plates are situated between pages 108 and 109.

1 Prehistoric pottery. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

2 Stone roof tiles. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

3 Brill-Borstall ware pottery. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

4 North Warwickshire ware pottery. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

5 North Warwickshire ware pottery. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

6 The open hall at the Commandery, Worcester City Museum Collection. Copyright Worcester Museums.

7 Excavation of the buttery and pantry showing stone oven and tank features. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

8 Green-glazed roof tile. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

9 Coxcomb crested tile. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

10 Chafing dish. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

11 Bone die. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

12 A Shakespearian map of Stratford-upon-Avon. Copyright: content Paul Edmondson; artwork Phillip Watson.

13 Brick floor surface in Shakespeare’s hall, possibly for chimneystack and hearth. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

14 Artistic reconstruction colour-wash of Shakespeare’s New Place, northeast view. Copyright Phillip Watson.

15 Midlands purple jug. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

16 Rhenish stoneware jug fragment. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

17 Copper pins. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

18 Bone objects: scoring peg, game piece(?) and lace bobbin(?). Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

19 Carved bone handle with child’s inscriptions. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

20 1702 full-colour image of Sir John Clopton’s New Place. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, ER1/96. Reproduced by permission of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

21 Plaster mouldings from the 1702 house. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

22 Large modillion moulding from the 1702 house. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

23 Onion bottle fragments from the oven flue. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

24 Fob seal recovered from the excavations. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls.

25 Bone domino recovered from the site. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

26 The Dig for Shakespeare project. Photo and copyright Kevin Colls and William Mitchell.

27 The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust portrait of William Shakespeare, probably 1610–20. Unknown artist, oil on panel, 55.8 × 41.9 cm (22 × 16½ in) 9 cm. Copyright the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Foreword

It is a scarcely believable chance that so many buildings connected with Shakespeare’s life survive in and around Stratford-upon-Avon: Henley Street, the Hathaway cottage in Shottery, Hall’s Croft, and Nash’s House. Robert Arden’s homestead is almost intact in Wilmcote; there is even what looks like part of grandfather Richard’s farm on the corner of Bell Lane in Snitterfield. To have all this is astonishingly good fortune.

Of all the houses he lived in, the one we would most like to know today is New Place. Bought by Shakespeare in 1597 after the death of his only son, this was his home till his own death in 1616. Although the house was rebuilt by 1702, it was demolished in 1759. For the last 250 years its presence has been marked only by a gap in the street frontage at the junction of Church Street and Chapel Lane.

That gap has almost seemed a metaphor for the man: so famous as an artist yet seemingly unknowable as a person. Yet now, unbelievably, that unpromising space has revealed more about the man than we could ever have thought possible.

The circumstances of Shakespeare’s purchase have long been known, but what has remained uncertain is whether he actually lived in it until his supposed retirement in around 1611. But this chronology, though still widely accepted, is based on flawed assumptions. In this book a compelling case is made that from Shakespeare’s mid-thirties New Place was always his primary residence – that this is where he lived with his family, and where he did much of his writing: a well-off, middle-class landowner who never lost touch with his roots.

But now the excavations have revealed something altogether more fascinating. The house had been built by the Clopton family at the end of the Wars of the Roses: a late medieval town house, the largest in Stratford-upon-Avon. As we know from an eighteenth-century sketch it was a five-gabled house, with a courtyard, hall, barns and garden. But it had fallen into disrepair when William bought it. In his 1733 edition of the plays, Lewis Theobald reported a family tradition from John Clopton (who had rebuilt New Place in 1702) that Shakespeare had ‘repair’d and modell’d it to his own mind’. This fascinating hint suggests that the house was not just renovated but rebuilt as a personal project. Coming on the heels of the fires and famines of the 1590s, with anti-theatre puritans in ascendency on the borough council, it is hard not to see that restoration in brick and timber as something more, as in some sense a psychological project, to put the world together again. Now the archaeology tantalisingly suggests this was so. Indeed, it may not be going too far to say that here for first time we have evidence of a project, beyond his work as a poet and dramatist, on which Shakespeare focused his creative imagination.

The remaking of the front block of the house created a first-floor gallery, 15 m in length, facing Church Street. As fashionable in interior design in the late Elizabethan period, the gallery, it is conjectured, would have been for the display of statuary, paintings and emblems (over the front door he was also entitled to display the coat of arms he had bought in 1596). Then, across a small green courtyard – the heart of the house – was a hall that the archaeologists think Shakespeare retained as a status symbol in the medieval fashion of the late Tudor world, as backward-looking as an accession-day tilt. Any reader of Shakespeare can see his nostalgia for the lost world of his grandparents’ time, his parents’ childhood: his obsession with history; the old kings and good friars; even his interest in shields, coats of arms, emblems and impresas. May we perhaps link this to his own ancestors, and to the ‘antecessor’ who, he claimed to the Heralds in 1596, had done Henry VII ‘valiant service’ (at Bosworth?)? Perhaps this was Thomas Shakespeare of Balsall, who was admitted to the Guild Book of Knowle with his wife, Alicia, the year after Bosworth in 1486. To this the authors add further fascinating speculations. Whether, as they suggest, the gallery had a row of portraits of kings is of course beyond proof, though Henry VII would be particularly apposite, as he was claimed as a patron by both the Shakespeares and the Ardens.

Through all this we sense the working of family memory: the poet’s inheritance from the older world that made him. New Place, as we imagine it now, thanks to the archaeologists, becomes a kind of memory room for the heirless branch of the Shakespeare clan.

The archaeologists have given us is a rich harvest, and many connections to the sources of the poet’s life. The house stood as a riposte to the sneers of Francis Beaumont, who, in his 1606 play The Woman Hater, referred to a glover’s son who hoped ‘shortly to be honourable’ – that is, to become a knight. If the Jungians are right that the house one dreams embodies oneself, then the archaeology of New Place may have uncovered an important clue to William. ‘Modelled to his own mind’, this, in a sense, is him.

Michael Wood

Acknowledgements

The authors would like especially to thank Nat Alcock, David Fallow, Andrew Gurr, Mark James and Nick Molyneux for their expert help and advice; Tara Hamling for permission to quote from her unpublished research; Robert Bearman for the use of the reports he produced during Dig for Shakespeare, his prompt answering of questions, for reading and commenting on the whole book, and his checking of the Shakespearian map of Stratford-upon-Avon; Mairi Macdonald for reading and commenting on Chapters 3 and 4; Stanley Wells for reading and commenting on the whole book, and Nick de Somogyi for his index. Paul Taylor and his team at the