Yes, I know this is the third post about Stratford, not the second. I've decided to keep reviews of eateries separate so I can find them more easily later, so this is part two of the non-food aspect of the day.
After a disappointing start to our day in Stratford we had
really enjoyed lunch at The Vintner, and stepped back out onto the Elizabethan
streets in reasonably happy mood. We
strolled to the end of Sheep Street and pondered the idea of turning right and
wandering back in the vague direction of the car. On a passing whim, however we
turned left and strode off to look at some Elizabethan streets. As previously
noted, Stratford is blessed with something of a surfeit of ancient timber
framed streets and they really do look impressive.
As we ambled along I caught sight of a sign in one of the
windows bearing the Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust logo declaring that this was
"Nash's House". Because I have an excellent memory, and I am always
keen to obtain value for money, I recalled that if you spend fourteen pounds on
a ticket to the Shakespeare Birthplace Museum, you are also entitled to
admission to Nash's House. I'll be honest, I had no idea who Nash was, or what
might be found in his house, but still smarting from what I felt to be the
terrible waste of money at the Birthplace Museum I reckoned we should at least
avail ourselves of the opportunity to get in out of the rain.
My wife concurred, and so we stepped out of the rain and
into the Seventeenth Century. You see, it turns out that Thomas Nash was the
husband of Shakespeare's granddaughter, and the ground floor of his house has
been furnished as it would have been in Nash's time. Glossing over the fact
that this appears to suggest that Nash had a gift shop and a cash desk in his
front room we waved our tickets at the nice man on the desk and walked through
into what I took to be the dining room. "I'll be doing a talk in about
five minutes, if you're interested" called the man as we passed. We
expressed polite interest and wandered off to look at the downstairs rooms.
We nearly didn't stop. You see, while the interior of the
ground floor might have been furnished in the style of the 1600s, it was not,
in and of itself, particularly interesting, and since none of the pictures on
the walls seemed to be labelled I began to wonder who the people in the
portraits were, and more importantly, why I should care. I also had no real
conception about where I was - at this point I didn't know about the connection
between Nash and Shakespeare, knowledge which the powers that be seemed to have
assumed that I possessed.
Still, no matter. Just as the thought that this was even
less impressive than the Birthplace began to form in my rebellious brain the
nice man from the ticket desk took his position in the corner of the room and
invited visitors to listen to his talk about the house and the
"project". Ever eager to learn, we crowded round and were treated to
a fascinating ten minute run down of the history of the house, and why it was important.
He ran through the history of the house and Shakespeare's family, but rather
more importantly, the history of the house next door - or at least the house
that used to be next door.
You see Nash's house is currently next door to a vacant lot
which looks an awful lot like a building site. In fact it's the polar opposite
of a building site, because Nash's House is next door to the site of New Place,
the former home of one William Shakespeare. New Place is long gone, demolished
by a former owner to avoid paying rates* and the site is now a massive
archaeological dig. "But before you go and look outside," advised the
nice man, "take a look at the exhibitions upstairs where we have many
artefacts found here, and from our archives."
So we did. The first floor** of Nash's house contains an
exhibition of objects from Shakespeare's time displayed in context with a
character from the Bard's many works, so items used for eating and drinking,
for example, are displayed with Falstaff. All very interesting, but what really
caught my eye was the collection of finds from the New Place dig. There's nothing
earth shattering here - no quill pens or
inkwell's bearing the inscription "Property of William Shakespeare"
or anything. but what is there holds
much greater fascination - for me at least - because what is on display are
those everyday items that make up the unnoticed clutter that makes life run
smoothly. I was particularly caught by a small collection of marbles, some
ceramic, some glass. Were these once the
playthings of Shakespeare's ill-fated son Hamnet?
An unanswerable question, of course, so we stepped outside
into the rain to take a look at the dig. As it was unapologetically lashing down - the main trench was basically
empty but there was plenty going on in the gardens that lie behind the Nash's
House/New Place frontage. Immediately behind the buildings is a small
Elizabethan style flower garden, but behind that
is a large lawn. On the lawn there is a collection of large bronze sculptures representing
some of the plays, some large holes filled with students and a couple of
marquees.
The student filled holes were "test pits" intended
to give a snapshot of the activity that might have taken place on the space
where the lawn now sits. The general consensus seemed to be
"outbuildings", although at the time we were there they were getting
very excited indeed about a layer of corroded metal that might have been
buckets. The rain increased in intensity so we left them to it and ducked into
one of the marquees.
We were met by a jovial bearded bloke who appraised our
forty something visages with a twinkle explained that he was in charge of the
kids activities and invited us to join in. The activities were simple but fun -
placing events onto a timeline, matching events to coins, digging artefacts out
of sand to learn about stratification, it's a shame it wasn't busier but there
were a few kids getting their hands dirty and I suppose it was getting late in the afternoon. From there we had a look around the second
marquee, where more students were freezing their fingers to the bone cleaning
finds from the various test pits on the lawn. We chatted for a bit, and there
was more general excitement about the unidentified corroded metal. "It's
probably a rubbish pit!" enthused one mud encrusted young lady, before
rushing out again to get back in the hole.
Archaeologists eh?
There was a lot of Stratford left to see, but as I said, the
afternoon was wearing on so we didn't
visit Shakespeare's grave, or the Royal Shakespeare Company. We did spend about an hour standing on a
bridge watching two coots looking after their chick, and however good lunch
was, and however much we enjoyed the dig at New Place that chick really was the
highlight of the day.
Sometimes it's the strangest things that stay with you...
*Nope. Not kidding.
**Or second floor if you're American.
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