The Shakespeare Tree Garden, created in a field beside Anne Hathaway's Cottage in Shottery, was originally opened in 1988. It contains about forty trees mentioned in Shakespeare's writings. In 2001 a yew maze was added, based on a design which appeared in a popular gardening book of Shakespeare's time, The Profitable Arte of Gardening by Thomas Hill.

Placed around the Tree Garden are a series of sculptures. These represent the fruits of an on-going initiative begun in 1999, and generously sponsored by the Newington-Cropsey Foundation of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, to commission art students from both sides of the Atlantic to create works inspired by Shakespearian themes. The students are selected by the Foundation and by the Royal Academy of Art in London; those who have so far completed works are Michele Firpo-Cappiello, Isaac Graham, Jane Lawrence, Eve Pomerantz and Niels Helvig Thorsen.