Today we visited the city of Stratford-Upon-Avon. The quaint city is well known for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare. On our hour and a half long walking tour led by Tim Hudson, who I really enjoyed because of his enthusiasm and charm, we saw too many sights to list so I’ll pick a few of my favorites.
Starting with the Holy Trinity Church, it was absolutely stunning on the outside. Unfortunately we couldn’t go inside the church but the outside was satisfying enough. I learned that in this church was where William Shakespeare is buried and that before he was dead there was another body buried in the church & he demanded that their body be removed so that he could be buried in the church, and he also wrote documents cursing anyone who attempted to do the same thing he did. Shakespeare’s desire to be buried and the church and the removal of the remains of the body there before, also taught me about the term p“bonfire” since their bones were thrown in fire to get rid of them. I also really enjoyed seeing the Jubilee Pavillion solely because of the fact that it was built in 1932 by a woman, Elizabeth Scott, who was related to many famous architects, and I’m all about feminism.
My next favorite site was Shakespeare’s birthplace and walking through his home. It was really interesting to be able to see the actual building that he lived in, although it probably is very different than it was when it was first built. Walking through the house I noticed how short the ceilings were so I’m assuming people back in the 1600s weren’t normally 6 ft. The house had a few bedrooms consisting of what I think were main quarters for the parents, a room for the girl children, and a room for boy children. I learned that girls often had the worst room as it was the smallest and smelliest because of the fact that women were seen as very much inferior to men during this time. The boys’ rooms were better than the girls but not significantly and children were often forced to sleep at least two or three to a bed. I also learned that people usually slept upright in bed, even babies, because they were very superstitious at this time and believed that if they slept laying down the devil may come and believe that they are dead and attempt to steal their souls and take them to hell.
Beyond our learning experiences in Stratford-upon-Avon, I also really enjoyed being able to walk around and enjoy the cute shops there, as well as the delicious dinner we had at Edward Moon, and the paintings of Tommy Shelby of course. However my favorite part of this day trip has to be my visit to the cat cafe with Asyah and Lauren and all the extremely adorable cats we got to play with, who were also all named after Shakespeare’s plays!
