ALL STRATFORD’S a stage
The good, the Bard and the not so ugly mark Shakespeare’s anniversary
I’m cycling on what the English charmingly call a “higgledy-piggledy” route, weaving through neatly packed hamlets and navigating rural public paths touching distance from stone cottages, farms, barns and a string of old pubs and spired churches.
It’s all part of a pilgrimage to retrace the steps of Shakespeare — with this year marking the 400th anniversary of the famous playwright’s death — between his likely stomping grounds in Oxfordshire, a couple of hours by train northwest of London, and his hometown of Stratfordupon-Avon.
Known as “the heart of the country,” the journey checks the quintessentially English countryside wish list. While ancient hedgerows and stone walls constantly carve up the land, my views change at every rotation: from a smattering of bold oak trees to silver birches and beech hedges; long-standing woodlands and plowed fields; grazing sheep and cows, all around quirkily-named villages (Oddington, Evenlode, Icomb), to boot. Turn these distinguishable vistas into a jigsaw, and you’d easily differentiate one nuanced piece from another.
Of course, whether you’re whizzing at breakneck speed as part of the Lycra legion or the easy riders (that’s me), arriving by bike is the chance to take in these sights at a more discerning pace as well as the smells, the air, the birds dancing by — oh, and build up not only a physical hunger but a mental appetite for the Bard.
You can’t help percolating over the Shakespeare canon as you roll on through the detailed map (run by The Carter Company, the itinerary takes you off the major roads and on to the “quiet stuff” such as lanes, canal towpaths and converted old railway lines as much as possible). It’s a landscape on this fine winter’s day less reminiscent of the austere King Lear, perhaps, but more a Puck-like “merry wanderer,” with a gentle undertone of Henry V’s “stiffen the sinews” along the three-hour-or-so ride (around 45 kilometres). My thoughts meander on how these places inspired his historical tales of noblemen, witchcraft and treachery.
I’m travelling from the train station at Kingham (just under two hours from London) towards the backslope of the raised Cotswolds region, upholstered mainly by its distinctive, eponymous yellow Jurassic stone and frequently thatched cottages (some with roofs fashioned into ducks) until I freewheel down into the Shakespearean market town and its famous River Avon. When I finally reach Shakespeare’s birthplace, my arrival is rewarded with a theatrical troupe (Shakespeare Aloud!), one of whom bursts into Portia’s soliloquy from The Merchant of Venice. (Just like a Shakespearean jukebox, the audience can request lines from any of his works.)
His beam-heavy 16th-century home certainly offers a sense of place to the traveller. It’s reassuringly creaky, with criss-crossed leaded windows, marble statues of the Bard, four-poster beds and all the Tudor and Elizabethan trimmings — from old tables and stools to the tanning equipment of the time. A tour will help also unravel the origins of certain expressions from the era — “sleep tight,” for example, comes from the custom of putting straw mattresses on bed frames and tightening them with ropes.
For some, the experience of being inside the writer’s haunts is overwhelming. On being told the original stone flooring of the parlour (the front room) is the very one on which the Bard would have trod, one recent visitor “whipped off her shoes so she could feel connected to him,” says one guide in costume, before stepping into the bedroom where he was born “and bursting into tears.”
After taking in a new exhibition revealing how his friends enjoyed his company, it’s only a few minutes walk around the “Historic Spine” of the town to Harvard House.
Another classic example of the wood-centric Elizabethan style also showcasing stained glass and painted panels, this is the original home of Roger Harvard, a contemporary of Shakespeare’s whose family later went on to found Harvard University. Dripping in oak, the house has the homeowners’ initials carved into its front and stands next to reportedly the oldest pub in the town (The Garrick Inn, named after David Garrick, the Shakespearean actor).
The town’s revving up for the quarter-centenary anniversary (April marks his birth and death) with the reopening of New Place, where Shakespeare spent his last two decades and penned 26 major works, set to take centre stage.
Reaching the end of the spine and bookending the town further along the banks of the river is Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare was baptized and buried. His grave comes complete with the famous caveat warning people not to even think about moving his bones elsewhere.
For purists, nothing is more intimate than taking in some of the writer’s works with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Check out one of its behind-thescenes tours and if you’re lucky enough to have tour guide Tony, there will be plenty of theatrics, including his trademark The Merry Wives of Windsor signoff: “Heaven give you many, many merry days.”
When it comes to visiting Stratford, “merry” is indeed at the heart of it.
And that’s forsooth. Lucy Hyslop’s trip was partly paid for and arranged by VisitBritain and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. The Carter Company lent her a bike.