Stratford-upon-Avon and Shakespeare – An Honest Guide
Shakespeare’s Birthplace, his grave and the Royal Shakespeare Company without the souvenir gloss: what is open, what it costs, what is closed – and Ira Aldridge, the first Black Othello in Shakespeare’s town.
Stratford-upon-Avon at a glance
Stratford-upon-Avon is a Warwickshire market town on the River Avon where William Shakespeare was born in 1564, married, raised his children, bought the second-largest house in town with his London earnings, died in 1616 and was buried. Without him it would be a pleasant small town between Birmingham and the Cotswolds. With him, it is one of the most visited places in England – and the home of one of the world's great theatre companies.
- Where: south Warwickshire, about 25 miles south of Birmingham and 95 miles north-west of London.
- Shakespeare's Birthplace: about £21 for an adult, including Shakespeare's New Place gardens; cheaper online. Tickets are valid for 12 months.
- Anne Hathaway's Cottage: about £15, or about £5 when added to a Birthplace ticket.
- Shakespeare's grave: Holy Trinity Church is free to enter; the chancel with the grave costs £5 for adults and £1 for under-18s.
- Closed: Mary Arden's Farm and Hall's Croft are not open to general visitors.
- Theatre: the Royal Shakespeare Company plays year-round in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the Swan Theatre.
- Time needed: one long day; stay overnight if you are seeing a play.
The honest picture
Stratford has been selling Shakespeare for more than 250 years. The industry really began in 1769, when the actor David Garrick staged a three-day Shakespeare Jubilee here – rained off, chaotic, and without a single Shakespeare play performed – which nonetheless turned the town into a place of literary pilgrimage. In 1847 the Birthplace itself came up for auction; there was talk that the American showman P. T. Barnum wanted to ship it across the Atlantic, and a public campaign bought it for the nation instead.
Today the town centre around Henley Street and Sheep Street is a dense mix of half-timbered buildings – some genuinely Tudor, some Victorian or 20th-century "Tudor" – with Shakespeare-themed gift shops, tearooms and coach parties. On summer days, the riverbank by the theatre is as crowded as a city park. The family homes are cared for by an independent charity, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which depends on ticket sales and has had to close two of its five houses to general visitors in recent years.
None of that means you should skip it. The houses are real, the grave is real, and seeing a Shakespeare play performed by the RSC in the town where he wrote for his London stage is one of the great experiences English culture offers. Come with realistic expectations, book ahead, and stay for an evening performance when the day-trippers have gone.
The Shakespeare houses
Shakespeare's Birthplace, Henley Street
The half-timbered house where Shakespeare was born and grew up. His father John was a glove-maker and wool dealer who rose to become the town's bailiff, the equivalent of mayor – and later fell into debt. You walk through the glover's workshop and the family rooms, furnished as they might have been in the 1570s, with costumed guides and actors performing short scenes in the garden. The modern Shakespeare Centre next door holds the Trust's library and archive. Pre-booking online is recommended and slightly cheaper.
Shakespeare's New Place
In 1597, already successful in London, Shakespeare bought New Place, the second-largest house in Stratford, and he died there in 1616. A later owner, the Reverend Francis Gastrell, demolished it in 1759 – reportedly out of irritation at tax and at the visitors who kept knocking to see Shakespeare's mulberry tree, which he had already cut down. The site is now a garden marking the outline of the house, with sculptures and the knot garden. It is included with the Birthplace ticket.
Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Shottery
The thatched farmhouse where Shakespeare's wife grew up, about a mile west of the centre – a pleasant 20-minute walk along a signed footpath through Shottery. It is the most photogenic of the houses, with a large cottage garden and orchard. Buy it as an add-on to the Birthplace ticket to save money.
Shakespeare's Schoolroom and Guildhall
The medieval Guildhall on Church Street, where the young Shakespeare almost certainly went to the King's New School, and where touring players performed for the town. Here you can sit at a Tudor desk and try a lesson in Latin. It is run separately and sold as a discounted add-on to the Birthplace ticket.
Closed: Mary Arden's Farm and Hall's Croft
Mary Arden's Farm at Wilmcote, the farm of Shakespeare's mother's family, is now used only for primary school learning. Hall's Croft, the Jacobean house of his daughter Susanna and her husband, the physician Dr John Hall, has stayed closed and was badly damaged in 2025 when a vehicle reversed into it; the Trust has placed it on Historic England's Heritage at Risk Register. Older guidebooks and tour websites still list both – do not plan around them.
Holy Trinity Church: baptism, burial and a curse
At the southern end of the town, on the riverbank at the end of an avenue of lime trees, stands Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare was baptised in 1564 and buried in 1616. The church is free to enter, and as a working parish church it holds services that can close it to visitors at short notice. To see the grave you pay at a desk in the nave and step into the chancel.
Shakespeare lies under a plain slab before the altar, next to his wife Anne and members of his family. The verse on his stone warns that anyone who moves his bones will be cursed – one reason, it is said, that he was never moved to Westminster Abbey. On the north wall is the painted funerary bust, set up within a few years of his death and one of only two portraits generally accepted as showing what he looked like. The parish register with his baptism and burial entries is on display. On his birthday weekend in April, a new quill is placed in the hand of the bust.
The Royal Shakespeare Company
The red-brick Royal Shakespeare Theatre on the river opened in 1932 after a fire destroyed the first Victorian Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and was rebuilt inside with a thrust stage in the 2000s, bringing the audience round three sides of the actors. Next door, the smaller Swan Theatre stages Shakespeare's contemporaries and new work. The company also uses The Other Place, a studio space on Southern Lane.
- Tickets: prices range widely; standing places and restricted-view seats can be cheap, and there are low-price schemes for young people. Popular productions sell out months ahead.
- Without a ticket: the theatre's tower has a lift to a viewing platform over the town and river (check whether it is open), and the café and terrace are open to everyone.
- Choose well: a famous tragedy or comedy is the safer choice for first-timers who do not speak English as a first language; many RSC productions are modern in style.
Shakespeare, Africa and the first Black Othello in Stratford
Shakespeare wrote at a time when there were Black people living in London and in English port towns, and Africa appears in his plays more often than most visitors realise. Othello, "the Moor of Venice", is his only great tragic hero who is not European. The Prince of Morocco courts Portia in The Merchant of Venice, and Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus defends his Black child with a fierce speech about his skin. Scholars often point to the English translation of Leo Africanus' Geographical Historie of Africa, published in London in 1600, as one of the books Shakespeare's generation used to imagine the continent.
For centuries Othello was played almost only by white actors in dark make-up. The exception changed history in Stratford itself. On 28 April 1851 the African-American actor Ira Aldridge played Othello at the Royal Shakespearean Theatre on Chapel Lane – the first Black actor to play the role in Stratford. In eight days he appeared in seven plays and visited Shakespeare's Birthplace twice. In the Birthplace visitors' book on 2 May he signed himself "the African Tragedian", giving Senegal, Africa, as his origin, and added a line from the Prince of Morocco: "Mislike me not for my complexion". The next Black actor to play Othello in Stratford was Paul Robeson, in 1959.
When the new Shakespeare Memorial Theatre opened in 1932, Aldridge was one of 33 theatre figures honoured with bronze plaques on the seats, the only one of African descent. Ask the front-of-house staff and they can show you where the plaques are. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has put its Aldridge material online in an exhibition worth reading before you come.
Around Stratford
Warwick, 20 minutes away by train or bus, has one of England's most famous castles – now run as a commercial attraction with shows and high prices – and, more quietly, the Lord Leycester Hospital and the medieval Collegiate Church of St Mary. Kenilworth Castle, a dramatic red sandstone ruin run by English Heritage, was where Robert Dudley entertained Elizabeth I for 19 days in 1575 – an event the young Shakespeare may have heard about.
Charlecote Park, a National Trust house four miles east with a deer park, is linked to the old story that the young Shakespeare was caught poaching deer there and fled to London – almost certainly a legend, but the deer are real. To the south, the northern Cotswolds begin at Chipping Campden, about 12 miles away.
Getting there
- From London: Chiltern Railways from London Marylebone, about 2–2.5 hours; some trains are direct, others change at Leamington Spa. Coaches run from Victoria Coach Station.
- From Birmingham: West Midlands Railway trains from Birmingham Moor Street and Snow Hill in about an hour.
- By air: Birmingham Airport is about 40 minutes by road – see our Birmingham Airport guide and UK airports guide.
- By car: M40 Junction 15. Town-centre car parks fill on summer weekends; use the Park and Ride on the Birmingham Road.
- In town: everything except Anne Hathaway's Cottage is within 15 minutes' walk of the station. River cruises and rowing boats leave from the Bancroft Gardens by the theatre.
Stratford combines well with Oxford, the Cotswolds and Warwick on a two- or three-day trip from London.
Visiting with a guide
Day tours from London commonly combine Stratford with Oxford, Warwick Castle and the Cotswolds, and many include entry to Shakespeare's Birthplace.
Tours and experiences
Entrance fees are included in the tour price; tips are not included but are always welcome.
Read next
Honey-coloured villages just south of Stratford – and the empire money behind them.
The other classic day out from London.
The industrial city half an hour up the line.
England's other great day trip of kings and queens.
Chaucer's pilgrims, Marlowe's birthplace and the white cliffs.
All our guides to England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
From Stratford to Africa
Ira Aldridge's signature – "the African Tragedian" – claimed a homeland in Senegal. On our partner sites you can follow the real places behind the stage Africa of Shakespeare's era: the Senegambian coast on Gambia Vibes, and the people who led Africa to independence on African Independence and They Made Ghana.
The African side of the story
Britain Adventures is an independent partner website. Our partner sites on Africa and its history are where the stories on this page continue:
- Pan-African: African Independence · Uganda · Egypt · Sierra Leone · All African Radio Stations
- Ghana: Ghana-Net · Cape Coast Castle · Elmina Castle · James Fort, Accra · They Made Ghana · War Cemetery Cape Coast
- Across Africa: Kenya Web News · Explore Nigeria · Gambia Vibes · Zambia Vibes
- European history: V2 Rocket and Peenemünde · Tannenberg Memorial
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