London one-way!

I haven’t quite made it to Cornwall yet, I leave in two days. But on Saturday Melissa and I went to Stratford-upon-Avon for the day.

We took the train up at 11am (with cheap fares my ticket only cost £9.90 return) and it took two hours, so we were on the hunt for food on arrival. I stopped to look at the sign post map while Melissa was reading a brochure map and as we slowly started walking Melissa gave me the map. I told her I couldn’t see the train station on there so she looked at me and said “Isn’t there a You Are Here dot on there?” I stopped dead in my tracks.

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.” Hamlet, Act II, Scene II. 

If you didn’t get it, re-read that paragraph. Both of us had stopped, looked at each other and burst out laughing – it was just one of those Duh moments that ended in a giggling fit. We followed people in what looked like the direction to town, and came to a centre point that was hosting a farmer’s market. Lunch for me was a fresh spit roast pork roll with stuffing, crackling and apple sauce – I had to cradle it in both hands because it was too tempting to use the 10 second rule for any rouge bits – while Melissa had a sausage and bacon roll that looked just as good.

We headed through the main street of town, browsing a few shops along the way to the tourist centre. It was on the bank of the River Avon, whose banks were flooded with visitors and locals, kids getting ice cream from the canal boat shop. We boarded a canal boat-cum-gallery (called The Barge Gallery – check it out www.bargegallery.com) to check out the local artists, but the main one we were interested in was where we headed to next.

Despite the occasional warmth from the sun, the shade and the wind were still cool and it was getting late in the afternoon. We stopped by a little gazebo shop where children and adults can do brass rubbings – some of them quite professional depending on the composition and mix in colours of wax used – but our destination was further down past the Royal Shakespeare Company’s theatres in a little church called the Holy Trinity.

We were drawn inside by the sound of a choir who were practicing for a concert that evening, so we sat a bit and listened, until our real reason for being here was remembered, the reason that most people make the visit to the little town of Stratford. Not in some vague area out back, William Shakespeare was buried in the chancel in 1616, with his widow Anne alongside him, and a few other members of his family.

On the wall a bust of Shakespeare overlooks his grave, and nearby the church has displayed his baptism and death registrations. My first question to the gentleman waiting nearby was curiosity. Shakespeare had 3 children, one who died young and so would not have had the privilege to be buried in there, one who lays in the chancel and one missing. He told me this young lady outlived her husband and went on to re-marry, and so she outlived the right to also be buried there. Chances are she is still somewhere in the graveyard, but unknown where.

He told us about the seats in the chancel. These were for the monks who were frail or disabled. When not in use, the wooden seats would sit upright to reveal a carving. All the carvers for the church had free range to create what they wanted – from thistles, to flowers, to faces. The one closest us was the funniest. Our wise man said the carver must have been angry at his wife because it shows a man grabbing the neck of his wife while she is yelling at him hehe.

Another fact was about the line of birches leading up to the church. They have been planted and replanted for tradition, 12 on each side, one side reflecting the Israeli’s and the other for the 12 apostles. Keeping with tradition, one birch on the apostles’ side is always planted slightly behind the others for Judas.

With all this knowledge squished into our heads we decided on the easy task of following the signs to Anne Hathaway’s cottage – a place that was a mile walk out of town, but for two regular gym goers, the distance wasn’t the problem, it was the fact we had to walk down an alleyway with people’s backyards fencing us in on either side. So allowing our thoughts to run wild with scenarios, how to jump the fence, whether the frog wade pool could be used to hide under, we eventually came out into an open sports field and another ten minutes later…

…so you remember the fairy tale scenario I’ve been talking about recently. We found ourselves crossing a small stream and (after paying to gain entry and running to the loos first) we were left to marvel at the gorgeous cottage, one side slightly higher as it was extended on a hill (it began as just the one main room, but Anne’s father did various work to it) including adding a second story on top of which sits the thatched roof. This was a cottage as if preserved from Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. It sits amongst beds of colourful flowers, although in Anne’s time it was probably all mud from farm animals.

The cottage belonged to Anne’s family, but it is the place where William wooed her with his sonnets of love. She was ten years older than him, and three months pregnant when they married. The Shakespeare Trust has built a willow cabin not dissimilar to the one he describes in Twelfth Night, where you can sit and listen to four of his most famous love sonnets.

After a quick stop at Shottery’s local pub we walked back to Stratford where it was well and truly chilly and the walk took no time. We went through a couple of the streets in town, including the main shopping street, closed to cars, where Shakespeare’s birthplace is. We couldn’t walk past the traditional lolly shop without buying a few sweets for the journey home, and passed another Shakespeare house – Hall’s Croft.

We were trying to find somewhere for dinner but the first pub was packed with rugby fans watching the game, the second wasn’t serving food despite all the signs about their ‘excellent’ food, and the third turned out to be an Indian restaurant. We ended up going into the Wetherspoon’s pub, the equivalent of a fast-food chain pub-style, and got fish and chips, drinks and a starter for £12 together – not a bad spend.

It took longer to get home on the train as we were stopping at more stations, so we left at 8pm but didn’t get in until half past 10. It was such a great day out, but after working about 40 hours in the last three days I’m well and truly ready for Cornwall.

Tags: Travel

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