Stratford-on-Avon

 

town (1991 pop. 20,941) and district, Warwickshire, central England, on the Avon River. A market town with light industries, Stratford owes its fame to its associations with William Shakespeare. A gabled building on Henley St., believed to be the poet's birthplace, is open to the public. The site of the home he purchased in 1597, and where he died in 1616, is marked (the building having been torn down in 1759). His grave is beside that of his wife, Anne Hathaway (whose home, “Anne Hathaway's Cottage,” is near Stratford), in the old Church of the Holy Trinity. The church has a bust and memorial to the poet and a stained-glass window (given by Americans in 1885) depicting Shakespeare's “seven ages of man.”

The town's principal memorial is the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, where annual Shakespeare festivals are held. The first theater, built in the late 19th cent., was destroyed by fire in 1926, but the attached gallery, library, and museum were saved. The current theater was dedicated as the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1932. The Royal Shakespeare Company operates several venues in Stratford, including the Swan Theatre.

Most of the structures and places in Stratford connected with the life of Shakespeare were acquired by the nation in the 19th cent. Edward VI's Grammar School, which Shakespeare may have attended, is national property. Shakespeare scholars from all over the world attend the Shakespeare Institute of the Univ. of Birmingham. In 1964 the Shakespeare Centre was established on Henley St. in Stratford.

Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon shown within Warwickshire
Population	23,676
OS grid reference	SP1955
District	Stratford-on-Avon
Shire county	Warwickshire
Region	West Midlands
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Stratford-upon-Avon
Dialling code	01789
Police	Warwickshire
Fire	Warwickshire
Ambulance	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Stratford-on-Avon
European Parliament	West Midlands
List of places: UK • England • Warwickshire

Coordinates: 52°′N 1°′W / 52.19, -1.71

Stratford-upon-Avon (IPA: /ˌstrætfɚd əpɒn ˈɛɪvən/) is a market town in south Warwickshire, England in the United Kingdom. It lies on the River Avon some 38 kilometres (24 miles),^[1] south of Birmingham and 14 km (9 miles)^[2] south-west of the county town, Warwick. In 2001, the town's population was 23,676.

The town is a popular tourist destination owing to its status as birthplace and deathbed of the playwright and poet William Shakespeare, receiving about three million visitors a year from all over the world.^[3]

The administrative body for the town and the district is the Stratford-on-Avon District Council, which is based at Elizabeth House, Church Street, Stratford. It uses the term 'on' to ensure people realise that it is responsible for a much wider area than just the town of Stratford-'upon'- Avon, and to differentiate itself from the Stratford-upon-Avon Town Council, which is based at the Civic Hall in Rother Street. The Town Council is responsible for crime prevention, cemeteries, public conveniences, litter, river moorings, parks,and grants via the Town Trust, plus the selection of the town's mayor. Locally, the town is known simply as Stratford, and as such can be confused with the Stratford in the London Borough of Newham.

Economy

Apart from tourism - which is a huge employer, especially in the hotel and catering sectors - other industries in the town (which used to include Flowers Brewery, canning, and the manufacture of aluminium ware, industries which closed in the 1960s and the early 21st century) are boat building and maintenance, engineering - mechanical and electrical - food manufacture, IT and call centre activities ( both of which are growing sectors), a large motor sales sector, industrial plant hire, building and building suppliers, market gardening, farming, storage and transport logistics, finance and insurance, plus a large retail sector. Major employers in the town include the NFU Mutual Insurance Company, Avon Insurance, Amec, Tesco, Morrisons, Marks & Spencer, Debenhams and B & Q. There are, nominally, three theatres, run by the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company, which attract huge audiences, and income for the town.

History and Geography

Stratford has Anglo-Saxon origins, and grew up as a market town in medieval times. The name is a fusion of the Old English strat, meaning street and ford, a river crossing.

Stratford is also close to the Cotswolds, with Chipping Campden some 24 k (15 miles) to the south. As a major sheep producing area ( Shakespeare's father, John, bought and sold sheep illegally for a while) the Cotswolds, up until the latter part of the 19th century, regarded Stratford as one of its main centres for the slaughter, marketing and distribution of sheep and wool. As a consequence Stratford also became a centre for tanning during the 15th - 17th centuries.

Stratford's Theatres

The first real theatre in Stratford was a temporary wooden affair built in 1769 by the actor David Garrick for his Jubilee Celebrations of that year to mark Shakespeare's birthday. The theatre, built not far from the site of the present RST, was almost washed away in two days of torrential rain that resulted in terrible flooding.

A small theatre known as The Royal Shakespeare Rooms was built in the gardens of Shakespeare's New Place home in the early 19th century, but had, by the 1860s become derelict.

To celebrate Shakespeare's 300th birthday in 1864 the brewer, Charles Edward Flower, instigated the building of a temporary wooden theatre, known as the Tercentenary Theatre, which was built in a part of the brewer's large gardens on what is today the site of the new, and temporary, Courtyard Theatre. After three months the Tercentenary Theatre was dismantled, with the timber used for house building purposes.

In the early 1870s Charles Flower gave several acres of riverside land to the local council on the understanding that a permanent theatre be built in honour of Shakespeare's memory, and by 1879 the first Shakespeare Memorial Theatre had been completed. It proved to be a huge success, and by the early 20th century was effectively being run by the actor/manager Frank Benson, later Sir Frank Benson.

The theatre burned down in 1926, with the then artistic director, William Bridges-Adams, moving all productions to the local cinema.

An architectural competition was arranged to elicit designs for a new theatre, with the winner, English architect Elisabeth Scott, creating what we see on the riverside today. The new theatre, adjoining what was left of the old theatre, was opened by the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, in 1932.

The new theatre had many illustrious artistic directors, including the actor Anthony Quayle.

Peter Hall took over the theatre in 1961 (he'd been a director there from 1959), creating the RSC Royal Shakespeare Company that same year.

The Swan Theatre was created in the 1980s out of the shell of the remains of the original Memorial Theatre, quickly becoming one of the finest acting spaces in the UK.

Travel

Stratford is close to the UK's second largest city, Birmingham, and is easily accessible from junction 15 of the M40 motorway. The seven-mile (11 km) £12m Stratford Northern Bypass opened in June 1987 as the A422. Stratford-upon-Avon railway station has good rail links from Birmingham (Snow Hill station, Moor Street station) (Hourly trains, until approximately 8:30pm) and from London, with up to seven direct trains a day from London Marylebone.

The town has numerous cycle-paths, and is the terminus of the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal where it meets the Avon. A park and ride scheme was launched in 2006 . The Stratford Greenway is a 5mile traffic free cycle path - which used to be part of the rail network until the early 1960s - which is part of the Sustrans cycle network. Starting from town it heads towards Welford and Long Marston.

Coventry is only 25 k (16 miles) away to the north-east, with its new airport a vital European link for businessmen and women, and for tourists.

Tourist attractions

The town is located on the river Avon (which actually means river), on the banks of which stands the Royal Shakespeare Theatre - designed by the English architect,Elisabeth Scott , and completed in 1932 - which is the home of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Until recently the RSC also ran two smaller theatres, the Swan, which is modelled on an Elizabethan theatre - which closed in August 2007 as part of the refurbishment plans - and The Other Place theatre, a black box theatre, which closed in 2005 to make room for the temporary RSC Courtyard Theatre, which opened in July 2006. This theatre is now the home of the RSC while the RST is being refurbished; the interior of which is similar to the planned interior of the refurbished RST. The site of The Other Place has now become the foyer, bars, cloakroom, dressing rooms, and rehearsal space of the Courtyard Theatre. The Other Place will be reinstated after the RST and Swan refurbishment is complete and the Courtyard Theatre is dismantled; although many in the town would like to hang on to the Courtyard so that it can used by local theatre companies.

Other tourist attractions within the town include Shakespeare's Birthplace, one of five houses relating to Shakespeare's life, which are owned and cared for by The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. These include Hall's Croft (the one-time home of Shakespeare's daughter, Susannah, and her husband Dr John Hall) and Nash's House,which stands alongside the site of another property, New Place, owned by Shakespeare himself, and the house in which he died. Near to the town are Anne Hathaway's Cottage at Shottery, the home of Shakespeare's wife's family prior to her marriage and Mary Arden's House, the family home of his mother. Elsewhere in the district are farms and buildings at Snitterfield, that belonged to the family of Shakespeare's father.

Within the town is also Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare was baptised and is buried.

Non-Shakespearean attractions include the Stratford Butterfly Farm,which is on the eastern side of the river, the Bancroft Gardens, and the Black Swan pub, or Dirty Duck, depending from which side you approach the pub, which has been frequented by actors - 'fresh from the stage' - for over 100 years. The walls of the pub are covered in signed photographs of actors such as Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, and Laurence Olivier.

Six kilometres away is Charlecote Park, a historic Elizabethan house set in a deer park, from where Shakespeare reputedly poached deer.

Eight miles (13 km) away is Ragley Hall, one of England's finest stately homes and home to the Jerwood Sculpture Park; and just a handful of miles from that Coughton Court.

The town had a publicly-funded art gallery, The Gallery, but this was closed in 2004, although there are numerous small private galleries in the centre.

The influx of tourists into Stratford ( 3.5 million a year) has caused tension with residents for decades, and there are perennial complaints about numerous tour buses clogging certain roads in the town.

The refurbishment of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, which includes a new tower, bars and restaurants, has now begun and is due to be completed in 2010. The plan to build offices and flats on the defunct cattle market site next to the railway station has still not been finalised.

Each year on October 12th (unless this is a Sunday, in which case October 11th) Stratford hosts one of the largest Mop Fairs in the country. Then, on the second Saturday following, the smaller Runaway Mop fair is held.

The Stratford-upon-Avon International Festival of Literature

This festival, the first of its kind in the town, will be held at The Shakespeare Hotel on the 18th, 19th, & 20th of April 2008, and as an annual event thereafter. Guest speakers will include Colin Wilson, Sebastian Peake, son of the novelist Mervyn Peake, Garry Kilworth, and Brian Gordon Sinclair. Part of the festival will be given over to the life and work of Ernest Hemingway. The last evening of the festival will see the presentation of the first Charles Whiting Awards For Literature.

Henley Street

Henley Street is one of the oldest streets in Stratford-upon-Avon, where, in 1556 John Shakespeare bought a half-timbered farm house that is typical of the Tudor style of architecture of its day, which, in 1564 became the birthplace of his son William Shakespeare. The birthplace now stands alongside the Shakespeare Centre - completed in 1964 - and not far from the Carnegie Library, which was completed in 1905. Henley Street is now a major tourist and shopping area for the town, with many pavement cafes and street entertainers.

Sheep Street

As the name suggests Sheep Street - which leads down from the Town Hall to Waterside and the RST- was, from early times and until the late 19th century, the area where sheep, brought from the neighbouring Cotswold Hills, were slaughtered and butchered. Today it is the restaurant centre of the town, with such restaurants as 'Lambs', the 'Vinters', and the 'Oppo' among some of the best in Britain. Sheep Street also has some long established ladies 'gown' shops. The oldest house in Stratford, The Shrieves House, where Oliver Cromwell is thought to have stayed in 1651, before the second battle of Worcester,can be found in this busy street. Alongside, and behind 'The Shrieves House' is the Falstaffs Experience, which is an entertaining museum of the macabre.

Waterside & Southern Lane

This area of Stratford, which leads directly off Sheep Street and runs alongside the RST, is due for a great deal of alteration and re-planning during the renovation of the theatres. Currently part of the building directly opposite the Bancroft Gardens is home to The Shakespearience which is something of an indoor Shakespearean theme park that once housed the old Waterside Theatre. The Shakespearience can, nonetheless, give the uninitiated something of an insight into the world of Shakespeare.

In October 2007 the Italian restaurateur and broadcaster Antonio Carluccio will be opening a new restaurant next to The Shakespearience, which can only add to the attraction of the area.

Educational establishments

Stratford is also home to several institutions set up for the study of Shakespeare, including the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which holds books and documents related to the playwright, and the Shakespeare Institute.

The most famous school in Stratford is King Edward VI school, which is where William Shakespeare is believed to have studied. It is an all-boys school, and one of the few remaining grammar schools in England, selecting its pupils, as do the other grammar schools in Warwickshire, exclusively using the Eleven plus examination. There is also an all-girls grammar school, Stratford-upon-Avon Grammar School for Girls, colloquially known as 'Shottery School' after its location in the village of Shottery, a short distance from the town centre. Finally, there is a non-selective secondary school, Stratford upon Avon High School, formerly known as the Hugh Clopton Secondary Modern School, which was demolished recently to make way for the new High School. There are no independent secondary schools in the town. There are numerous primary schools, both state and independent.

Next to the new High School is the newly extended Stratford-upon-Avon College which excels in the teaching of drama and cookery.

Churches

• Stratford-upon-Avon Holy Trinity Church

Famous residents other than Shakespeare

• The acclaimed science fiction novelist, and author of '2001 - A Space Odyssey', Arthur C. Clarke, served with the RAF at Stratford-upon-Avon during the 1940s. As an officer he worked on early radar and experimental trials of Ground Controlled Approach radar. His novel 'Glide Path' was based on that radar work. During this time he also wrote and published the landmark 1945 technical paper 'Extra-terrestrial Relays', in which he established the principles of satellite communication using satellites in geostationary orbits. Clarke later wrote the short story 'The Curse', which takes place in a post-apocalyptic Stratford-upon-Avon.

• Secretary of State for War John Profumo was the MP for Stratford-upon-Avon in the 1950s and early 1960s, until his relationship with Christine Keeler was discovered, forcing him to resign from Harold MacMillan's government.

• The Yorkshire novelist, playwright, and broadcaster, J. B. Priestley, lived, with his second wife, the writer Jacquetta Hawkes, at Kissing Tree House, Alveston, near Stratford-upon-Avon - a house he saw from the top of a bus during his chronicled journey around Britain in the 1930s. Priestley would often make an hilarious speech, as part of the Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations, on the trials and tribulations of being a writer. He died at Kissing Tree House in 1984 aged 90.

• In the late 1920s the composer Sir Edward Elgar lived at Tiddington House, in the village of Tiddington, just a mile outside Stratford. Now a widower Elgar spent most of his time taking his dogs for walks, fishing, building bonfires, and rowing his boat up and down the Avon with such guests as George Bernard Shaw. It is thought he may have started work on his Third Symphony whilst at Tiddington House. The house was demolished in the 1960s to make room for a new housing development.

• From 1901 to 1924, the romantic novelist, Marie Corelli - real name Minnie Mackay, daughter of Charles Mackay a songwriter (best remembered now for the song 'There's a Land, a dear Land') made her home, with her companion Miss Vyver, at Mason's Croft, Church Street, Stratford. Although her work is seldom read these days, it was considered by many at the height of her popularity to be extremely uplifting and moral. An eccentric through and through, Corelli had her own gondola on the Avon, and even employed a genuine Venetian gondolier. In the latter years of World War One she, with local store owner and mayor, Fred Winter - a man she had once accused of libeling her - encouraged many property owners in Stratford to uncover the original 16th and 17th century half-timbered frontages to their homes and businesses. Corelli died at Mason's Croft in 1924, after which Miss Vyver turned it into a guest house. Today the house is the Shakespeare Institute, which is part of Birmingham University.

• In the early 1960s the founder of the RSC Royal Shakespeare Company, Sir Peter Hall, and his French actress wife Leslie Caron, lived in a large house known as Avoncliffe in Tiddington (next door to Tiddington House, Elgar's home in the late 1920s), which Caron loved, "...It was heavenly, a lovely house." Avoncliffe was demolished in the late 1960s after Sir Peter had left Stratford.

• Labour MP and actor Andrew Faulds lived in Old Town, Stratford, until his death in 2000, aged 77. Faulds failed to become the labour MP for Stratford in the 1960s after Profumo's resignation, losing out to Angus Maude. He later became MP for Smethwick. Faulds, and his wife Bunty, played host to Paul Robeson during the 1959 season at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre where Robeson was playing Othello. There can be no doubt that it was during his stay with the Faulds' that Robeson inspired the young actor to take up radical politics. Today Andrew Faulds is still best remembered for playing Jet Morgan in the BBC radio series of the 1950s, Journey Into Space, which ran for over 60 episodes and co-starred David Kossoff.

• 19th century American novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, who, as the US Consul to Britain in the 1850s, lived for a time in the Warwickshire town of Leamington Spa, at Lansdowne Circus, from where he made regular trips to Stratford (just eight miles (13 km) away)to see performances of Shakespeare in the Royal Shakespeare Rooms - a small theatre built in the Great Garden of Shakespeare's New Place.

• Spy and thriller novelist, John Gardner - who died in August 2007 - lived in Tiddington in the 1950s and 1960s (a favourite spot for writers it would seem, where, as a journalist he chronicled Peter Hall's progress at Stratford), and where, in 1964, he created, in his first novel 'The Liquidator', the hilarious, and pretty useless spy, Boysie Oakes. The novel was a huge success. In the 1980s Gardner was asked to write a series of James Bond novels that kept the old spy alive and very happy. After living in Ireland and the US Gardner ended his days in Hampshire.

• English footballer Dion Dublin, who has played for both Manchester United and Aston Villa, and his national team, lives with his wife and family in Stratford.

• The famous car Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, from the film of the same name, and its owner Pierre Picton live in Stratford. It can be quite disconcerting to see Ian Fleming's creation - wings and all - cruising the lanes of Warwickshire, or parked-up in a busy Stratford street.

• Members of indie bands Klaxons and Pull Tiger Tail all grew up and went to schools in Stratford before they all moved to New Cross, London. Their families still reside in the area.

Suburbs

Shottery, Bishopton, Bridgetown, Tiddington.

Town twinning

• Stratford, Connecticut
• Stratford, Ontario

Notes

External links

• Visit Stratford-upon-Avon Online tourist guide for Stratford-upon-Avon
• Stratford-upon-Avon Official Local Government Website
• Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Website
• Stratford Observer The Local Stratford Newspaper
• Stratford Online Stratford Online Community Website.
• A Substantial Collection of Old Postcards of Stratford-upon-Avon

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