This is the pedestrian area that's in back of Shakespeare's family home, where he was born. Very quaint.
The actual birthplace house, and where Shakespeare lived until he was about four years old. His father was a glove maker. Evidently, his mother came from some money, too.
HM and myself.
Sir and HM. They're so cute together!
We entered the house from the garden side, not the side where we were photographed. The gardens were extensive and beautiful.
A small courtyard to the side of the house where they acted out scenes from various Shakespeare works.
The bedroom that William slept in as a boy. The wallpaper was something. If you look at it closely, it was a tad demonic to me. He had this actual wallpaper in the room as a boy. It would have given me nightmares!
Another room in the home. This is where the actress (who is playing Juliet in the next photo) stood to say her lines.
Dear Romeo down in the courtyard, responding to Juliet.
After touring the house, we caught a tour bus to take us to other sites. HM and Sir braved the cold by riding in the open-air top. Me? Ha! I stayed warm below. It wasn't long before they made their way down to warm up, too! Next stop, Anne Hathaway's house. This is part of the house and the extensive gardens.
Hathaway's house with Sir looking on.
A better view of the gardens. I'd love to see it change with each season.
HM and I sitting in this willow art piece.
Sans HM and Lyn.
Willow teepee where Sir and HM share a private moment. No posing here. No. Not at all.
Before we get to the inside of the house, I'll back up to that scandal I referred to earlier. Did you know that Anne Hathaway was 26 and William was only 18 when they married? He had to have written consent to marry because of his age. And, Anne was three months preggers. Shhhhhhh.
Upstairs bedroom and stairwell leading down to the main floor.
Down through the centuries, the Hathaway family fell on hard times and had to sell many pieces of their furniture and china. The historical society was able to retrieve and buy back a few furniture pieces. The china? No.
This is the kitchen. The docent described several interesting things here about how they cooked. A couple of them involved what I thought to be animal cruelty, so I blocked them from my mind.
Back to the outside. The thatch roof has chicken wire covering the entire surface. I wondered how they kept that stuff in place.
When we returned to where the tour bus was supposed to pick us up, we were somewhat confused--due to the time change--as to if we had missed the last bus, or if there would be another one along in 45 minutes. Because of the chill we didn't care to hang around and find out. We figured it was around 1-1/2 miles or so back to town, so we took off on foot and headed that way. Coming across a decent-looking pub, our stomachs decided for us that it was time to eat dinner. I had the Sunday pot roast and my first-ever Yorkshire pudding. It reminded me of a puff pastry. The warmth and good food were a welcome thing. After we finished, we walked on into town and through much of the town before getting back to the car and warmth once again. We estimated we had probably walked about 3-4 miles since we had left the Hathaway's house. So much for that 1-1/2 miles gig.
One of the most fun parts of the day was the drive back home. HM had loads of excellent music on her mp3. Unfortunately, I didn't know a lot of it since it was vintage 80s. She asked me, "Where were you during the 80s that you don't know this music?" Let's see. Three years of undergrad university from 1980-83, then one year of graduate work, then four years of dental school 1984-88, then birthing a baby in 1988 and starting my own dental practice. Who had time to listen to music? She was so sweet to try to find tunes that I could sing along with. The singalong was the best! Thanks, HM--you're a rock star!
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