The Ham Nomads

15 Nov 2015. <GB-ENG> Stratford-upon-Avo, & Temple Grafton, Warw —

Warren went into Stratford, leaving Suzie in the van with her journals. The plan was for him to to a little wandering, then to settle in to McDonald's until Suzie arrived. Then we would do a little more wandering together!

On the way in, Warren stopped by the Gower Memorial. This is a monument sculpted by Lord Ronald Gower and given to Stratford in 1888, after ten years of work creating it.

Atop the central plinth sits the Bard in all his glory. Surrounding this are four statues, representing the four genres his plays have at some times been categorized into: Hamlet (Philosophy), Lady Macbeth (Tragedy), Falstaff (Comedy), and Prince Hal (History).

After meeting up, the two of us explored a little further. We walked up Henley Street past Shakespeare's Birthplace and the Shakespeare Centre, and to its end where there is a statue of a jester commemorating the various jesters and fools in Shakespeare's plays — Yorick (Hamlet), Puck (Midsummer Night's Dream), The Fool in King Lear, Feste (Twelfth Night) and so on.

Almost opposite this is the Old Thatch Tavern on one corner and the market place on another.

Then we walked up to Rother Street, going past that magnificent old Tudor house, Mason's Court. A bit further along, we turned into Chestnut Walk, which runs into Old Town, where we find Hall's Croft. Dr John Hall came into this house when he married Shakespeare's favourite daughter, Susannah. John Hall ran his pharmacy and his consulting from this house, and was obviously quite well-heeled.

There are some interesting paintings inside Hall's Croft, all from Elizabethan times. One is entitled Death and the Maiden — the Latin tag at the top reads Mors ultima linea rerum est ('Death is the final limit of everything', from the Epistles of Horace, 1,16,79). Other paintings show typical dress of the time.

There's a modern statue out in the garden (with the ass's head of Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream), one which matches others at Nash's House and New Place, which was unfortunately closed for major renovations (which are thought by many — including us — to be conceptually unfortunate and tasteless). Part of the quotation on the back of the statue, from Theseus' speech in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act 5, scene 1) is

'The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.'

We then walked a little further, down to Trinity Church, on the banks of the Avon, where Shakespeare was effectively hatched, matched and dispatched! They have his baptismal register, the record of his wedding to Anne, and his grave is in the apse of the church. There is also a well-known memorial high on the wall in the apse, where Will with his quill looks down on all who visit.

After Trinity Church, we walked along the Avon and back to the van. On the way, we passed some lampposts that have been donated to Stratford by various cities and countries around the world. Here, for example, is one from Israel — At the top of the lamppost, as if seated on the cross bar, are statues of a man with an ass's head (the character Bottom from Shakespeare's A Midsummer night's Dream) and a man playing the fiddle (Tevye from 'Fiddler on the Roof'). Above the lamp is a statue of an owl. This is part of the world's only collection of working international lampposts, and was started up when the locals realised the number of international tourists coming to the Stratford.

We then drove out to our layby at Temple Grafton, past the Stag Inn again, so we could drop in to the Oversleigh Mill Service area in the morning before setting off for Bletchley Park.

Distance driven — today, 11 miles ( 18 km ); to date, 30,739 miles ( 49,470 km )