Description of the attraction
The William Shakespeare House Museum is located in Stratford-upon-Avon, where the great English playwright and poet was born and died.
The house, built in the 16th century, is located on Henley Street in the city center. In the opinion of our contemporary, the house seems simple and quite small, but in those days only a very wealthy person could afford such a dwelling. It is known that Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, was a glove maker and trader in wool.
The architecture of the house is typical of that time. On the ground floor there is a living room with a fireplace, a large hall with an open hearth and further along the corridor - the master's workshop. There are three bedrooms on the second floor of the house. A small cottage and a room that now houses a kitchen were added to the house later.
Shakespeare himself inherited this house after the death of his father, but by that time he already had his own house, New Place, where he lived with his family. So the Henley Street house was rented out and a small hotel opened there.
Interest in Shakespeare's work, and, accordingly, in his life, increases again in the middle of the 18th century. The pilgrimage to the house where the playwright was born begins. Among the autographs left on the walls and window sills, we see the names of Isaac Watts, Charles Dickens, Walter Scott and Thomas Carlisle. Byron, Tennyson, Keats and Thackeray left their autographs in the book of guests of honor.
In 1847, a specially created foundation with the support of such celebrities as Dickens bought the house and carried out significant restoration work. As far as possible, both the exterior of the house and the furnishings inside it were restored. Furniture, utensils and clothing are exact copies of what the Shakespeare family used when they lived in the house.
