Shakespeare's Birthroom

This and other rooms can be viewed in virtual reality on the ground floor by wheelchair users and those unable to use the stairs. For a sample of this programme illustrating the adjoining chamber please click on the link above. 

The Shakespeare Exhibition

In 1995 Sir Roy Strong opened an exciting new exhibition on Shakespeare's life in the Visitors' Centre. This was the first phase in the re-presentation of the Birthplace site.

The Re-display of Shakespeare's Birthplace

The next major step to improve the presentation of the site, was the re-presentation of the Birthplace itself, a project completed in April 2000. Rooms have been furnished, as accurately as possible, recreating the sort of interior with which William would have been familiar as a young boy in the 1570s.

As well as being a home, the house would have included business premises for John Shakespeare, William's father. John was a glove-maker/wool dealer, and a glover's shop has been reconstructed.  Notes On Gloves And Glove Making in The Sixteenth Century (106.50 KB)

History of the Birthplace

Exhibitions illustrate the fascinating history of Shakespeare's Birthplace, its occupants (from Shakespeare's time onwards) and its changing functions (home, workshop, inn, butcher's shop, literary shrine and visitor attraction).

Furniture

Research was conducted into the type of furnishings to be found in middle-class households of sixteenth-century Stratford and for many years a substantial collection of original furniture, domestic utensils and ceramics, has been developed, in order to furnish the house in an authentic manner.

Replicas

To complete the picture of everyday home-life in the sixteenth century, the ephemeral, everyday objects that have so rarely survived the past four hundred and thirty years, have been accurately replicated. These items have been made based closely on excavated or illustrated examples.

Textiles

Most middle-class homes would have been comfortably furnished with a wide range of different textiles including bed linen, curtains, cushions, tableclothes, napkins and towels. Detailed research was undertaken to discover the type of cloth and dyestuffs used, and the Clothworkers' Foundation generously sponsored the replication of textiles based on this study.

Archaeology

The structure of the Birthplace was studied in detail and in 1996 an archaeological excavation revealed the remains of medieval and early modern occupation and a seventeenth/eighteenth-century inn cellar.

Crafts

The project required a great range of traditional crafts skills: from wood-turning to bookbinding, from limewashing to hand weaving, from the making of wattle and daub panels to creating sheet horn for lanthorns. Careful conservation of original artifacts has made possible the display of original items.

Visitor Survey

In March 1999 a trial redisplay of the chamber traditionally known as 'the irthroom' was prepared A small visitor survey to gauge visitor reaction to the new display was very positive. To our surprise one of the most popular features of the room were the painted cloths. This was, for the modern visitor, probably one of the most radical, but accurate, departures from the traditional 'brown and white' interior usually associated with Elizabethan rooms. Linen cloths, stiffened with size and often garishly painted, were common as wall-coverings. The cloths in the 'birthroom' were faithfully copied from a surviving sixteenth-century wall painting in Oxford, using the natural pigments and brushes used by 'daubers' (painters) of the period.

Events

A Tudor Christmas renactment by the Tudor Group has become an annual event in early December. The Hall table heaves with festive food: with meat filled mince-pieces, marchpane (marzipan sweets) and a roast pig's head stuffed with an apple. Children make garlands to decorate the house, while visitors are initiated into the rules and tricks of Elizabethan card and board games. Good fun is had by all, and visitors are treated to cups of warming wassail cup and 'lambs wool'.

Improved Access

The re-presentation of the Birthplace has improved access to the building:

• To aid wheel-chair user access to the Birthplace, paths leading to and from the building have been built up to doorway level.
• A Virtual Reality Computer presentation in the entrance will allow those visitors unable to go upstairs to view the first floor displays on the ground floor.
• Video-conferencing facilities that help open up the building to online visitors throughout the world.

Funding

Redisplay and building conservation schemes such as the Shakespeare's Birthplace project have been made possible by generous donations from the public, the corporate sector and charitable trusts. If you are interested in helping the Trust to enhance and conserve our Shakespeare heritage by making a donation please visit the section on Supporting Us.