Anne Hathaway's Cottage - Cottage Entrance and Gift Shop - Wheelchair Access - sign

I had finally reached Anne Hathaway's Cottage on foot. Note I had no plans to go inside. Just get my shots and walk back to Stratford.

 

Anne Hathaway's Cottage is run by The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

 

Here it is, I made it to Anne Hathaway's Cottage after all that walking. Looks like a nice place to visit.

 

Anne Hathaway's Cottage is a Grade I listed building. On Cottage Lane.

 

Farmhouse, now museum. C15 or earlier with C16 alterations;

c1600 wing to left end and C17 wing to right end; left wing

damaged by fire in 1969. Timber-frame with brick and plaster

infill on limestone plinth; thatch roof, higher to left wing,

with brick stacks.

PLAN: 2-unit plan with through-passage, probably originally

hall and 2-storey wing, with 2-window range to left end and

narrower range to right end.

EXTERIOR: single storey and attic. Coursed rubble plinth,

higher to left end and to height of ground floor to right end.

Entrance to through-passage and one to left wing, both with

plank doors. Varied fenestration, mostly restored 2-light

leaded casements; one canted oriel with hipped tile roof to

left wing; 4 dormer windows, one an eyebrow dormer. Stack to

rear of ridge has datestone: IH/ 1697, and stack to right, to

rear of ridge, both with tapering caps; left end stack. Rear

similar; entrance to through-passage has wide-boarded door

with wooden pull handle.

INTERIOR: full cruck truss to right of hall and partly exposed

cruck truss to its left; through-passage to back of hall

fireplace; chamfered beams and exposed joists to ground floor;

wide-boarded doors. Hall has brick and rubble fireplace with

chamfered bressumer, 2 tinder holes to back and side recess, a

bacon cupboard, has grille with splat balusters and

inscription: IH EH 1697; some re-set C17 panelling; fixed

settle between fireplace and door. Kitchen has wide fireplace

with bressumer, inserted brick bread oven with ash hole below.

1st floor has exposed trusses and wind braces; wide

floorboards except to left wing, which has tie beam cut for

doorway; exposed cruck trusses over hall, one with spurs and

trenched principals, collar and yoke; smoke hood to hall

fireplace of brick with some exposed wattle panels.

HISTORICAL NOTE: the birthplace of Anne Hathaway, 1556-1623,

who married William Shakespeare in 1582, and the home of the

Hathaway family from the C15 to 1892, when it was sold to the

Trustees and Guardians of Shakespeare's Birthplace. It has

been a place of marked literary and tourist interest from at

least the mid C18, and is reputed to be the place of William

and Anne's courtship; especially noted is the so-called

'courting settle' in the hall.

(VCH (offprint): Styles P: The Borough of Stratford-upon-Avon

and the Parish of Alveston: London: 1946-: 17; Buildings of

England: Pevsner N: Warwickshire: Harmondsworth: 1966-: 397;

Fox L: Anne Hathaway's Cottage: Norwich: 1987-).

 

Anne Hathaway's Cottage - Heritage Gateway

 

This is the entrance to the Cottage Entrance and Gift Shop. Wheelchair Access to the right.

Done