Today started with our first experience on the train in the UK! Our group went to Moor Street station and got on the train to start our journey to Stratford-upon-Avon, which is Shakespeare’s birthplace and hometown.
It was about an hour train ride, and when we got off, we walked a little ways to meet Tim, who kindly gave us our tour around Stratford today. We started at Gower Memorial, which was a statue of William Shakespeare with statues representing Shakespeare’s 4 types of plays: comedy, tragedy, history, and philosophy. It was really beautiful and interesting to see how much detail was put into the statues, like the different types of flowers that were facing each theme.
After walking around and hearing about Shakespeare’s life, we came up to the Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare was buried. The church was one of the prettiest I’ve seen; the art on the stained glass was so amazing. Tim talked to us about how Shakespeare’s wife was the one who picked the statue of him that’s set up in the church, and how the quill he holds in his hand is renewed every year through a ceremony.
For lunch, we ended up going to Dirty Duck, which is a really famous pub that actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company go to after they perform. After that, we all went to the Shakespeare gift shops and got to look around. There were so many cute and funny things in there, even mini copies of some of Shakespeare’s plays! Then we got to look into some of the charity shops, which are like thrift shops that collect proceeds for different charities/non-profits in the UK. I think it’s such a brilliant way to raise money for these organizations, and we all enjoyed getting to look around them.
Our final stop for the day was at Shakespeare’s birthplace in his childhood home. We got to take a tour through the house and learned about how William’s dad, John Shakespeare, made William and his wife Anne Hathaway an extension of their family home so that William and Anne could have their children, Susanna, Judith, and Hamnet. It was really cool to see how much of the house was preserved and what was reinforced or remade. Tim was so knowledgeable, and it was so impressive how much he knew about the Shakespeare’s life. He talked about how John Shakespeare was a very successful mayor in Stratford, which allowed Shakespeare to attend a grammar school as part of his early education. The most interesting part of the house was the actual birthing room where William Shakespeare was born. By a birthing chair and with help from a midwife, William was born in the 1560s. The room had an example of a baby crib, and a fun fact we learned about was how the babies were all wrapped up in the crib except their face, so that all their limbs could grow straight.
Overall, it was a great day of exploring Stratford and learning about Shakespeare’s past and life. Stratford-upon-Avon was such a cute little town to visit, and it definitely had a lot to offer! It makes me even more excited to explore Oxford and London soon!
