Anne Hathaway's Cottage Stratford-upon-Avon, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

SP1854 COTTAGE LANE, Shottery 604-1/5/304 (South West side) 25/10/51 Anne Hathaway's Cottage

GV I

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-).

Listing NGR: SP1844954745