Shakespeare's Birthplace [antikvár]

i. I-;. : J -1 J. l i .L ; M-. if, I. ' ' J . j EARLY HISTORY IN 1847A 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 heart-stirring 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 the 16th September 1847, when the property was purchased for preservation as a national memorial 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 vvall 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 some 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 original timber framing. Though now detached, the Birthplace originally formed 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.