Description

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

SP1854 COTTAGE LANE, Shottery
604-1/5/304 (South West side)
25/10/51 Anne Hathaway's Cottage

GV I

Farmhouse, now museum. C15 or earlier with C16 alterations;
c1600 wing to left end and C17 wing to right end; left wing
damaged by fire in 1969. Timber-frame with brick and plaster
infill on limestone plinth; thatch roof, higher to left wing,
with brick stacks.
PLAN: 2-unit plan with through-passage, probably originally
hall and 2-storey wing, with 2-window range to left end and
narrower range to right end.
EXTERIOR: single storey and attic. Coursed rubble plinth,
higher to left end and to height of ground floor to right end.
Entrance to through-passage and one to left wing, both with
plank doors. Varied fenestration, mostly restored 2-light
leaded casements; one canted oriel with hipped tile roof to
left wing; 4 dormer windows, one an eyebrow dormer. Stack to
rear of ridge has datestone: IH/ 1697, and stack to right, to
rear of ridge, both with tapering caps; left end stack. Rear
similar; entrance to through-passage has wide-boarded door
with wooden pull handle.
INTERIOR: full cruck truss to right of hall and partly exposed
cruck truss to its left; through-passage to back of hall
fireplace; chamfered beams and exposed joists to ground floor;
wide-boarded doors. Hall has brick and rubble fireplace with
chamfered bressumer, 2 tinder holes to back and side recess, a
bacon cupboard, has grille with splat balusters and
inscription: IH EH 1697; some re-set C17 panelling; fixed
settle between fireplace and door. Kitchen has wide fireplace
with bressumer, inserted brick bread oven with ash hole below.
1st floor has exposed trusses and wind braces; wide
floorboards except to left wing, which has tie beam cut for
doorway; exposed cruck trusses over hall, one with spurs and
trenched principals, collar and yoke; smoke hood to hall
fireplace of brick with some exposed wattle panels.
HISTORICAL NOTE: the birthplace of Anne Hathaway, 1556-1623,
who married William Shakespeare in 1582, and the home of the
Hathaway family from the C15 to 1892, when it was sold to the
Trustees and Guardians of Shakespeare's Birthplace. It has
been a place of marked literary and tourist interest from at
least the mid C18, and is reputed to be the place of William
and Anne's courtship; especially noted is the so-called
'courting settle' in the hall.
(VCH (offprint): Styles P: The Borough of Stratford-upon-Avon
and the Parish of Alveston: London: 1946-: 17; Buildings of
England: Pevsner N: Warwickshire: Harmondsworth: 1966-: 397;
Fox L: Anne Hathaway's Cottage: Norwich: 1987-).

Listing NGR: SP1844954745

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Anne Hathaway's Cottage at Wikipedia
• Anne Hathaway's Cottage official website
• Wikidata Q902137

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  This Old House: Restoring, Rehabilitating, and Renovating an Older House
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings