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New Place () was
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
's final place of residence in
Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...
. He died there in 1616. Though the house no longer exists, the site is owned by the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (SBT) is an independent registered educational charity based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, that came into existence in 1847 following the purchase of William Shakespeare's birthplace for preserva ...
, which maintains it as a specially-designed garden for tourists.


Early history

The house stood on the corner of Chapel Street and Chapel Lane, and was apparently the second largest dwelling in the town. The current site of New Place was initially within the plot of an
Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
farmstead sometime around 700BC-43AD, as indicated by pottery that also dates to the same time period. New Place was built atop the site of a former 13th-century timber building in 1483 by Sir Hugh Clopton, a wealthy London
mercer Mercer may refer to: Business * Mercer (car), a defunct American automobile manufacturer (1909–1925) * Mercer (consulting firm), a large human resources consulting firm headquartered in New York City * Mercer (occupation), a merchant or trader, ...
and Lord Mayor. Built of timber and brick (then an innovation in Stratford) it had ten fireplaces, five handsome gables, and grounds large enough to incorporate two barns and an orchard. In 1496 Sir Hugh Clopton left New Place in his will to his great-nephew William Clopton I ('my cousin William Clopton') and the male heirs of the lordship of Clopton. In his will William Clopton I (d. 29 May 1521) granted his wife, Rose (d. 17 August 1525) a life interest in the property, with the reversion after her death to his son, William Clopton II. When
John Leyland John Leland or Leyland (13 September,  – 18 April 1552) was an English poet and antiquary.Carley (2006), "Leland, John (''ca''. 1503–1552)" Leland has been described as "the father of English local history and bibliography". His ''Iti ...
visited in 1540, he described New Place as a "''praty house of Bricke and tymbre wherm he (ie Hugh Clopton) lived in his latter dayes and dyed".'' In November 1543, William Clopton II leased it for forty years to a surgeon,
Thomas Bentley Thomas Bentley (23 February 1884 – 23 December 1966) was a British film director. He directed 68 films between 1912 and 1941. He directed three films in the early DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, ''The Man in the Street'' (1926), '' ...
(d.1549), who left his wife, Anne, a life interest in the lease during her widowhood. Anne remarried, however, and after she became the wife of Richard Charnock, William Clopton II retook possession of New Place. By his wife Elizabeth Grey, the daughter of Sir Edward Grey of
Enville, Staffordshire Enville is a village and civil parish in rural Staffordshire, England, on the A458 road between Stourbridge and Bridgnorth. Enville is in the South Staffordshire district. The largest village nearby is Kinver, with the smaller villages of Bobbi ...
, William Clopton II had a son, William Clopton III (1537–1592), to whom he left New Place by will in 1560. On 20 December 1563, hard-pressed for money to pay his sisters' marriage portions and continue travelling in Italy, William Clopton III sold New Place to William Bott, who had already resided in it for several years. In 1567 Bott sold New Place to William Underhill I (c. 1523 – 31 March 1570), an
Inner Temple The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional associations for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wal ...
lawyer and clerk of assizes at
Warwick Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined with Leamington Spa and Whi ...
, and a substantial property holder in
Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...
''.''


Sale to Shakespeare

At his death in 1570, Underhill left New Place to his son, William Underhill II (d.1597), who in 1597 sold it to
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...
for £60. He (William Underhill II) died two months later, and it emerged that he had been poisoned by his eldest son and heir, Fulke Underhill. According to some sources, Fulke Underhill died in May 1598 while still a minor and before the fact that he had murdered his father was discovered. According to other sources, however, Fulke Underhill was hanged in 1599 for his father's murder and
attainted In English criminal law, attainder or attinctura was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and hereditary ...
for felony, whereby his property, including New Place, was forfeit to the crown. In 1602 the Court of Exchequer appointed a commission to "obtain an account of the possessions of Fulke Underhill of Fillongley, county Warwick, felon, who had taken the life of his father, William Underhill, by poison". When Fulke's younger brother, Hercules Underhill, came of age in 1602, his father's former properties were regranted to him, and he and Shakespeare negotiated a confirmation of the sale.


After Shakespeare's death

In 1616 the house passed to his daughter
Susanna Hall Susanna Hall (née Shakespeare; baptised 26 May 1583 – 11 July 1649) was the oldest child of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway and the older sister of twins Judith and Hamnet Shakespeare. Susanna married John Hall, a local physi ...
, and then his granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall, who had recently remarried after the death of her first husband, Thomas Nash, who had owned the house next door. After Elizabeth died, the house was returned to the Clopton family. In 1702 John Clopton radically altered, or rebuilt, the original New Place – contemporary illustrations suggest the latter. In 1756 then-owner Reverend
Francis Gastrell Francis Gastrell (10 May 1662 – 24 November 1725) was Bishop of Chester and a writer on deism. He was a friend of Jonathan Swift, mentioned several times in ''A Journal to Stella'', and chaplain to Robert Harley, when Harley was Speaker of th ...
, having become tired of visitors, attacked and destroyed a
mulberry ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of diverse species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 identif ...
tree in the garden said to have been planted by Shakespeare. In retaliation, the townsfolk destroyed New Place's windows. Gastrell applied for local permission to extend the garden. His application was rejected and his tax was increased, so Gastrell retaliated by demolishing the house in 1759. This greatly outraged the inhabitants and Gastrell was eventually forced to leave town. The
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (SBT) is an independent registered educational charity based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, that came into existence in 1847 following the purchase of William Shakespeare's birthplace for preserva ...
acquired New Place and Nash's House in 1876. Today the site of New Place is accessible through a museum that resides in Nash's House, the house next door. The site received 109,452 visitors during 2018.


Archaeological excavations

Excavations in the grounds of Nash's House were initially carried out in 1862 and January 1864 by
James Halliwell-Phillipps James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (born James Orchard Halliwell; 21 June 1820 – 3 January 1889) was an English Shakespearean scholar, antiquarian, and a collector of English nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Life The son of Thomas Halliwell, he ...
but after the excavations were finished, the ruins were eventually covered up by a garden and further excavations carried out during 2010, 2011 and 2012 by Birmingham Archaeology, removing the garden from the site all together. Archaeologists from ''
Time Team ''Time Team'' is a British television programme that originally aired on Channel 4 from 16 January 1994 to 7 September 2014. It returned online in 2022 for two episodes released on YouTube. Created by television producer Tim ...
'' visited the dig during 2011 and a special programme on the subject, "Searching for Shakespeare's House", was transmitted on 11 March 2012. BBC One National Treasures broadcast a live programme from the site in August 2011. Findings from the excavation indicated the presence of a Tudor structure but were inconclusive as to the ground plan of Shakespeare's original house.


Clay pipe fragments at Stratford-upon-Avon

Clay pipe fragments unearthed in recent years in Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon garden were found to possibly contain traces of
cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...
, along with
tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...
and
camphor Camphor () is a waxy, colorless solid with a strong aroma. It is classified as a terpenoid and a cyclic ketone. It is found in the wood of the camphor laurel ('' Cinnamomum camphora''), a large evergreen tree found in East Asia; and in the k ...
, based on the results of a study published in the ''
South African Journal of Science The ''South African Journal of Science'' is an open access, Multidisciplinarity, multidisciplinary academic journal published bimonthly by the Academy of Science of South Africa. The journal has a 2021 impact factor of 2.134. History The journal w ...
''. This has fuelled
speculation In finance, speculation is the purchase of an asset (a commodity, good (economics), goods, or real estate) with the hope that it will become more valuable shortly. (It can also refer to short sales in which the speculator hopes for a decline i ...
by some that Shakespeare may have possibly smoked cannabis, which is known to have been used to treat certain medical conditions at the time by Elizabethans, as well as in the manufacture of materials such as
sails A sail is a tensile structure—which is made from fabric or other membrane materials—that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may ...
,
rope A rope is a group of yarns, plies, fibres, or strands that are twisted or braided together into a larger and stronger form. Ropes have tensile strength and so can be used for dragging and lifting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similarly ...
, and clothing, and may have also been used for purposes of pleasure. The pipe fragments, however, could have belonged to any number of other persons besides the famous playwright, and cannot be definitively dated to the periods of his residency there as they could have been from the 18th century, around 200 years after Shakespeare's death.


Gallery

File:New Place Gardens -Stratford-upon-Avon -20Mar2008.jpg, Gardens File:Knot Garden at New Place -Stratford-upon-Avon.jpg, Knot Garden, New Place File:Shakespeare's New Place - Birdseye view.jpg, Artist impression of Shakespeares New Place opening July 2016 New-Place-excavations-Jan-1864.jpg, Site of the ruins of New Place next to Nash's House in January 1864 New Place ruins.png, Photograph of the ruins of New Place in 1864


See also

* Shakespeare garden


Notes


References

* * * * * * * *


Further reading

*Bearman, Robert, 'Shakespeare's Purchase of New Place', ''
Shakespeare Quarterly ''Shakespeare Quarterly'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1950 by the Shakespeare Association of America. It is now under the auspices of the Folger Shakespeare Library. Along with book and performance criticism, ''Shakespeare Qu ...
'', Volume 63, Number 4, Winter 2012, pp. 465–86. *Watts, Percy R., 'Shakespeare's "Double" Purchase of New Place' (1947), 20 '' Australian Law Journal'', pp. 330–36.


External links

*
Deed to lead uses from William Clopton to William Bott of Stratford and Thomas Goodale, 20 December 1563 Folger Shakespeare Library
Retrieved 21 December 2013
Bargain and sale from William Clopton to William Bott, 20 February 1563, Folger Shakespeare Library
Retrieved 21 December 2013
Underhill, Fulke: Warwick, Inquisition post mortem, C 142/258/29, 1598–9, National Archives
Retrieved 29 December 2013
Fillongley Inquisition (commission only) as to the possessions of Fulke Underhill, attainted, E 178/2362, 1601–2, National Archives
Retrieved 29 December 2013
Inquisition as to lands and goods of Fulke Underhill, attainted, E 178/7358, 1601–2, National Archives
Retrieved 29 December 2013
Shakespeare's last house: Archaeologists reveal more, BBC News, 22 December 2013
Retrieved 23 December 2013 {{coord, 52.1907, N, 1.7076, W, region:GB_type:landmark, display=title Demolished buildings and structures in England Gardens in Warwickshire Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Archaeological sites in Warwickshire Buildings and structures demolished in 1759