Rich007's photostream  

Detail of part of the façade of The Shakespeare Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. Originally a collection of houses, the Tudor-built black and white timber-fronted building became a hostelry in 1637. During the Civil War, the pub was nicknamed the Shakespeare after Stratford's most famous son, and the name stuck. Each of the rooms is named after one of the Bard's plays or characters.

There is at least one ghost at the hotel, with several sightings of a bearded man wearing a long brown cloak roaming the corridor outside room 203, with both guests and staff reporting mysterious goings on in this room.

Needless to say, guess which room I want to stay in!

Taken on February 18, 2012.

William Shakespeare's Church - Holy Trinity - in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, by night, from across the River Avon.

Late night is one of the few times this ancient location falls quiet (rather eerily so, in fact). At other times, a constant stream of tourists and pilgrims of literature - at 200,000 a year, this is England's most visited parish church - visit, passing through the aged, stooped, thickly-timbered main doorway to gaze at the font where the world's greatest writer was baptised in 1564; where he was a lay rector; and where he was buried at the altar in 1616.

Dating from 1210, and built on the site of a Saxon monastery, this is Stratford-upon-Avon's oldest surviving building. It would have been regarded as old even when Shakespeare knew it. He would have come to Holy Trinity every week when he was in town, all through his childhood, and on his retirement when he came to live at nearby New Place. His wife, Anne Hathaway, is buried next to him along with his eldest daughter Susanna. The church bore witness to a sad episode shortly before Shakespeare's death. The day after he signed his last will and testament, on March 25, 1616 - in a 'shaky hand' apparently - William's son-in-law, Thomas Quiney was found guilty in the church court of fathering an illegitimate son by a Margaret Wheeler, who had recently died in childbirth. Quiney was ordered to do public penance within the church. The distress and shame for the Shakespeare family must have been immense, and is rumoured to have contributed to William's final illness. For, within a month he was dead, with his funeral and burial being held at Holy Trinity on April 25, 1616.

Taken on February 18, 2012.

The observation tower of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. Rising 36 metres above the River Avon, the tower gives unparalleled views over William Shakespeare's home town.

Taken on February 18, 2012.

The Swan and Royal Shakespeare Theatres, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, by night, across the River Avon.

The Victorian Gothic Swan was opened in 1879 as the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, but destroyed by fire in March 1926. It was re-opened again in 1986 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, taking its new name from the 16th century building in London that first staged the Bard's plays in the capital, as well as the birds that populate the tranquil River Avon immediately outside. The neighbouring Royal Shakespeare Theatre was constructed in the early-1930s but rebuilt, albeit retaining much of the original structure, in 2010.

Taken in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England on February 18, 2012.

London Underground nameboards, North Greenwich tube station, North Greenwich, London, England. Taken on January 23, 2012.