Shakespeare's Birthplace [antikvár]

EARLY HISTORY In 1847 a sale poster displayed in Stratford-upon-Avon, London and elsewhere attracted considerable attention. It announced the sale of 'Shakespeare's House' at Stratford-upon-Avon, ?the truly heartstirring relic of a most glorious period, and of England's immortal bard ... the most honoured monument of the greatest genius that ever lived'. The sale took place at the Auction Mart, London, on 16 September 1847, when the property was purchased for preservation as a national memóriái to the dramatist. The history of Shakespeare's Birthplace and its associations is fascinating. No record of the erection of the building survives, but architectural features suggest that the greater part of it was built in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth centuries. Like most of the old houses of Stratford-upon-Avon it was a product of local materials: timber from the nearby Forest of Arden and blue-grey stone from Wilmcote, the village where Shakespeare's mother lived as a girl. The building consists of a low foundation wall of stone on which is erected a framing of oak beams, the spaces between the timbers being filled in with wattle and daub and the structure Consolidated by a massive stone chimney stack in the centre and a raftered roof. The timbers on the lower frontage are of the early, close-studded type, about nine inches wide and the same distance apart, with rectangular panels in the upper storey. Though it has suffered somé changes and necessary restoration the property bears substantially the same appearance as in the earliest surviving representation of it, and having regard to its age contains a good deal of the originál timber framing. Though now detached, the Birthplace originally förmed part of a continuous frontage of houses and shops abutting on to Henley Street. The buildings formerly on either side were demolished in 1857 to diminish fire risk. OWNERSHIP OF THE PROPERTY The question naturally arises as to the nature of the evidence supporting the Shakespeare connection with the Birthplace. There is