This is the day! J has been to Stratford-upon-Avon before, but I haven't. Unfortunately, to get a good price on the train we've had to book a few days ahead. This gives us tickets for about £12 each instead of £59 each, but doesn't really allow us to take the weather into account. So, for the first time in twenty-three days here rain is predicted - wintry showers to be precise.
Umbrellas called for. We take the train from Marylebone station, which is really handy. Train turns out, conveniently, to have wifi aboard - slow but welcome. Change at Leamington Spa for Stratford-upon-Avon, which is at the end of a spur line. The station there has, as we'd hoped, leaflets with 2 for 1 vouchers for the houses we want to visit. Regular price £26 each, so we're pleased. Ten or fifteen minute walk into the town centre, which is nearly as compact as it was in 1600. There's more than enough to do, so we find ourselves skipping short videos and recitations that are probably worthy of more attention, consoling ourselves with the thought that the passes are good for a year - we can come back for the things we've missed.
Our first stop is the house in which Shakespeare was born, actually a building that became in Shakespeare's own time three houses. A moving thought, though actual appreciation slightly impaired by group addicted to selfie taking. The building is pretty large, consisting of three houses joined together, which Will later cannily let out as a hotel. Also stop at his later home, New House. Here the house no longer exists, though the gardens do.
And then Holy Trinity, Shakespeare's parish church. Obviously a functioning parish now but also the place where Will was presumably baptised and definitely buried, along with most of his family members. As well as the grave stones in the church, there is a memorial relief of WS, donated by his friends a few years after his death. Interesting in that, as the info points out, presumably it actually resembles him as his wife and daughters were still alive at the time it was installed.
Our last stop is Half House, home of Shakespeare's elder daughter, Susannah and her husband Dr John Hall, a physician who had a reputation as a diagnostician and was apparently much sought after by those who could afford his services. In some ways the most interesting of the houses. It's large and clearly the former home of a prosperous upper middle class family. And we've been learning as we go about the implications of the class system. Not subtle. Everything from the colour and fabric of one's clothing to the number and content of one's daily meals prescribed by law. There is a copy of an edited version of Dr Hall's case notes. Not discreet politically or otherwise, it seems, and so, four hundred years later we know that his wife suffered from constipation. Still some diagnoses and remedies that make sense four hundred years later. I pick up a copy of the book. Astonishingly heavy for a paperback. Worse, our beautifully informative guide tells us, it's out of print and the original plates seem to have been lost. The exhibition room here has period medical equipment, including a disturbing needle for pushing aside the clouded lens in cataract patients. A saw for amputations (though the only anaesthetic must have been alcohol) and an artificial nose - handy for one who had lost his original in battle or, less gloriously, through syphyllis. [OK - this doesn't look right, but I'm on an airplane and my spellcheck pretends it doesn't know the word at all and thinks no nice girl should either].
Just beginning to rain, but we're ready for the warmth and stimulation of Starbucks, which owes us two free large coffees due to past purchases. Train back to Marylebone. A handy station for future reference, as it's only twenty minutes exactly from leaving the train to arriving via tube, at our hotel room. Compare with trains arriving at King's Cross or Waterloo. Though there are a finite number of destinations from Marylebone. Mainly Birmingham (but why?) and Coventry (ok, there's the cathedral). So may do again.
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