Shakespeare's birthplace
Great Shakes - Will.He.Was 16th-century Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of playwright and poet William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a medieval market town in County Warwickshire in England’s West Midlands. The name Stratford-upon-Avon is an amalgam of strǣt (Old English for street), ford (a shallow part of a river) and avon (Celtic for river). Archeologists have found 3 Roman settlements in the area that date back to circa 43-410 AD. A charter granted to Stratford in 1196 by King Richard I allowed a weekly market to be held in the town, giving it the status of a market town. Soon it became a place of work for tradesmen and merchants. One such skilled tradesman was John Shakespeare , a renowned glove-maker and whittawer (leather worker), the father of William Shakespeare. He was also a wool tradesman who accumulated enough wealth to buy a house on Henley Street in 1556 where he and his wife brought up five children (three more died in infancy). Later in 1576 he bought two ad