Hall's Croft is a fine timber-framed house, in Old Town, the street which leads from the town-centre streets to the parish church. It is named after John Hall who is famous for two reasons. Through his marriage, in 1607, to Shakespeare's elder daughter, Susanna, he was assured of a posthumous reputation simply by being Shakespeare's son-in-law. The couple had one child, Elizabeth, born the following year. On Shakespeare's death in 1616, the small family moved into New Place, which Susanna inherited from her father. John died in 1635 and Susanna in 1649. Elizabeth, their daughter, married, first, Thomas Nash (died 1647), and then John Barnard, but had no children by either.

Hall, however, has another, and quite different claim to fame. He was a physician by profession, and in 1657, twenty-two years after his death, a selection of his case notes was published, under the title Select Observations on English Bodies. These record his treatment, between 1611 and 1635, of some 155 patients, from aristocrat to pauper, most of them living within a fifteen-mile radius of Stratford. They afford a rare insight into early seventeenth-century medical practice and provide interesting biographical details on many people close to Shakespeare.

The oldest part of the present structure, the Hall and Parlour to the north, with a range of small rooms behind, dates from the early seventeenth century, and is now furnished as it would have been in Hall's day. It includes a consulting room or dispensary together with the essential requirements of a physician of that time; a pestle and mortar, for instance, Delft ointment pots and Italian drug jars.

These rooms were an extension to an older building to the south (on the site of the present shop), which was later reconstructed, probably towards the end of the seventeenth century.

On Shakespeare's death in 1616, Hall and his wife took up residence at New Place and the ownership of Hall's Croft passed to a family of town gentry by the name of Smith. Around 1630 a free-standing kitchen was built, with hayloft and stable, probably replacing an earlier building on the site. Then, around the middle of the century, the two separate structures were linked together by an impressive new staircase hall.

For many years this large and complex building continued in use as the residence of town gentry. Then, from the late eighteenth century until around 1850, it was occupied by professional men, mainly solicitors and doctors, before being converted into a private school, first for boys and then girls. From the 1880s, however, it was the home of a well-to-do widow, Catherine Croker, until her death in 1913. For a few months in 1899 she let it to the best-selling novelist, Marie Corelli. It was then sold to an American, Josephine Macleod, who took up residence there with her sister, Betty Leggett, the widow of the millionaire founder of a New York grocery business. Betty died in 1931 and in 1943 Josephine made the house over to her niece, the Countess of Sandwich. Her daughter sold the house to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1949. Following substantial restoration, it was opened to the public in 1951.

Details of opening times and admission charges

A quiz sheet, ideal for visitors with children and for visiting primary schools, is available free at the house, or download a PDF version from the link above.