Who Lived in a House Like This- Inside the 500 year old Anne Hathaways Cottage Shakespeares Love

Hello, welcome to Through Lucy's Lens weekly videos where I go somewhere interesting and hopefully you'll find it interesting too. I'm a social historian I'm interested in the history of people and on this channel I go around houses, I take you on my adventures, lots of things we can do together. So this week I am at Anne Hathaway's cottage in Stratford-upon-Avon. It's so close to where I live and it's been on my list to come here for absolutely ages but the time has never been right so on this beautiful spring day I'm here at Anne Hathaway's cottage. She was the wife of Shakespeare, it has lots of Shakespeare connections of course, but for me it's a beautiful example of a Tudor built cottage. Tudor is one of my passion periods along with the Victorians and the 1950s as I'm sure you have already discovered but this is the first time I've been able to get my teeth into something really Tudor. Even though there are Victorian aspects too, let's say it's a very well put together exhibit of everything I love and I do hope you enjoy coming around with me. So let's on this beautiful spring day go and explore the cottage of Anne Hathaway, wife of Shakespeare. Let's go. Tucked among the rolling fields of shottery, just one mile from Stratford-upon-Avon stands one of England's most iconic homes, Anne Hathaway's cottage. With its timber framed walls, sloping thatched roof and winding garden paths, it looks like it stepped right off a chocolate box. It's a living link to the world of William Shakespeare, often said to be England's greatest playwright and of course to the woman Anne Hathaway that became his wife. It's always really busy here and it's right on the Shakespeare Trail and visited by thousands of fans every year. Anne Hathaway was born here around 1556, the eldest of eight children into a farming family. The house wasn't originally a cottage in the modern sense, it was a substantial farmhouse and part of a working estate. Anne's father, Richard Hathaway, was a prosperous local farmer and the family standing would have placed them solidly within the respectable rural middle-class society in Tudor times. It was here that a young Anne Hathaway met William Shakespeare. William, born in 1564, was eight years her junior. Their courtship remains a subject of speculation and scholarly debate. What we do know is that in 1582 a license was granted for their marriage when William was just 18 and Anne 26. Anne was already pregnant with their first child Susanna at the time of their wedding. The marriage was hurried but it lasted a lifetime. Despite long periods of separation, Shakespeare spent most of his professional life in London and goodness knows what he got up to there. But he returned often to Stratford and to Anne and upon his death in 1616 he left Anne his second best bed in his will. Was this a slight or was it a gesture of intimacy? Many scholars now believe it was their marital bed, it was a deeply personal gift. Despite their long-distance marriage, William Shakespeare almost certainly visited this house and likely on many occasions. While no diary entries or letters survived to confirm specific visits, common sense and of course the proximity suggest that during their courtship and perhaps early in their marriage Shakespeare would have come here to visit Anne's family. At that time this home would have been bustling with siblings, servants and to the rhythm of the daily farm life. It would have been worlds away from the noise, politics and freedom of London's For William Shakespeare it may have offered a sense of calm and a place to return to or simply a place where he could just become William the husband and father rather than William the playwright. Several of Shakespeare's early comedies such as As You Like It, A Midsummer's Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing feature pastoral farming settings and of course romantic misunderstandings and witty independent female characters. Some suggest that Shakespeare's experiences courting Anne in the countryside here may have shaped these storylines or character types, although with a lot of things connected to Shakespeare no one is really sure. There is one object in the cottage that draws particular fascination and it's so-called Shakespeare's chair. This oak armchair is traditionally said to have been used by William when he visited the house. Carved and steeped in legend the chair became a symbolic touch point for 19th century visitors to the house, more on that later. In fact during the Victorian period slithers of wood were taken from the chair and embedded into souvenirs, a way for tourists to take a tangible piece of Shakespeare's life home with them. Although scholars and historians have debated the authenticity of this chair for years it certainly dates from the correct period and the fact that the Hathaway family preserved it for centuries may speak volumes about its symbolic value. Whether Shakespeare truly sat in it or not we don't know, we'll never know, but the chair has certainly become part of the folklore of the cottage. What do you think? Did he sit or not sit in this chair? That is the question. The house Anne left behind when she became Mrs. Shakespeare is remarkably well preserved. Originally it was a 12-room farmhouse and it remained in the Hathaway family for over 400 years. In the Victorian period the Hathaways facing changing times including industrialisation, they had hard times, they were poorer than they'd ever been and at this point they decided to cash in on the rising popularity of Shakespeare in Victorian society and they opened the house to the public. By the mid 19th century with the growth of the railways and Queen Victoria's own love of Shakespeare tourism flourished to the house. Visitors came in all over the world to walk in Shakespeare's footsteps and the Hathaway descendants realised that Anne's family home could become an important stop for tourists on the Shakespeare Trail. They charged entry fees to the house, sold souvenirs and offered personal tours. It said that Mary Baker, a Hathaway descendant, an early tour guide here became something of a celebrity herself, known for reciting passages from Shakespeare and fiercely defending the cottage's authenticity. The Hathaways were actually early custodians of heritage tourism and they were here charging the house as usual was the kitchen and this was originally a storeroom but was made larger during the time that Anne Hathaway lived here and became a kitchen with the fireplace we see today. There are marks in the kitchen, they're subtle and they're really easily missed but they're actually full of meaning. In the cottage's oldest timbers visitors have found what they believe to be witch marks scratched into the wood near chimneys, doorways and windows. These marks often resemble daisy wheels, overlapping circles or compass designs and were thought to ward off evil spirits or protect against witchcraft. But not all of these marks are magical, if any at all. Some are actually quite practical. Some are actually practical carpenters marks used to label beams during construction and they're found in the cottage too. These are typically Roman numerals, letters or symbols that ensured that each timber was placed correctly. Today the cottage is maintained by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and they offer guided tours, historic gardens and exhibitions. I don't know folks but what do you think? It certainly was very beautiful and every inch of the chocolate box English cottage and absolutely what tourists love to see, particularly from overseas and I completely understand that. But I can't help thinking I did feel like I was in a bit of a Victorian theme park and a word to the wise, it's super expensive to get in. Although you can return for a year on that ticket which is useful if like me you're local because it really is beautiful, particularly the gardens. I think I'd like to return when it's less busy. I'm not sure if it ever is quiet here to be honest, the draw being so strong of everything Shakespeare. The gardens and the orchards outside are beautiful and I really love spring so I enjoyed a stroll through the orchards and beehives. So that was Anne Hathaway's cottage, not just the wife of Shakespeare but I guess the quiet keeper of his roots. As always thank you for coming with me, I hope you enjoyed this week's video. If you don't already I would really appreciate a subscribe to the channel. I upload weekly and it's always somewhere different but hopefully always interesting and I really do appreciate your support. I've got a secret to tell you, as I publish this video I will have just landed in Northern Ireland for a brand new adventure. I've been planning this for months and I cannot wait to share it with you from next week. So until then, see you later.