Anne Hathaway's Cottage

Anne Hathaway's Cottage
Warwickshire
Anne Hathaways Cottage and garden
Type:	cottage
Location
Grid reference:	SP18425475
Location:	52°11’27"N, 1°43’55"W
Village:	Shottery
History
	cottage
	Timber framed
Information
Owned by:	The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
Website:	Anne Hathaway's Cottage

Anne Hathaway's Cottage is the twelve-roomed farmhouse where Anne Hathaway, the wife of William Shakespeare, lived as a child, in the village of Shottery in Warwickshire. It stands about a mile west of Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare himself was born. Spacious, and with several bedrooms, the house is now set in extensive gardens.

The earliest part of the house was built before the 15th century; the higher part is 17th century. The house was known as Hewlands Farm in Shakespeare's day and had more than 90 acres of land attached to it; to call it a cottage is really a romantic misnomer, as it is a sizable farmhouse. As in many houses of the period, it has multiple chimneys to spread the heat evenly throughout the house during winter. The largest chimney was used for cooking. It also has visible timber framing, typical of vernacular Tudor architecture.

After the death of Anne's father, the farm was inherited by her brother, Bartholomew, and was passed down the Hathaway family until 1846: in that year financial problems forced them to sell Hewland's Farm, though retaining the house. The Hathaways remained in ownership until 1892, when the daughter of the family Mary Baker, sold the house to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Her, son William Baker, was allowed to occupy part of the house rent free for the rest of his life in return for custodian duties, and remained until his death in 1911.

The Trust on acquiring the house removed later additions and alterations in order to return the house to something in which Anne Hathaway and William Shakespeare would have known it.

In 1969 the cottage was badly damaged in a fire, but was restored by the Trust. It is now open to the public as a museum.

Replicas

Anne Hathaway's Cottage and garden

Full size replicas of Anne Hathaway's cottage have been built around the world: Bedfordale, in Western Australia English Inn in Victoria, British Columbia, though this Cottage has now been torn down In the United States: Odessa College, Texas Staunton, Virginia

Sculpture Trail at Anne Hathaway's Cottage and Garden

• 

  History Play
  by Jane Lawrence

• 

  Titania and Bottom
  by Gemma Smith

• 

  King Lear
  by Eve Pomerantz

• 

  Falstaff, What is Honour
  by Niels Helvig Thorsen

• 

  Hamlet: What Wilt Thou Do For Her
  by Michele Firpo-Cappiello

• 

  Brutus
  by Isaac Graham

• 

  Garden path

• 

  Garden path

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Anne Hathaway's Cottage)

• Anne Hathaway's Cottage: Shakespeare Birthplace Trust