Barn at Shakespeare wife Anne Hathaway cottage turned into snack kiosk

Posted on by Listify Me

  • The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust gutted a Grade I listed barn on the site of Anne Hathaway’s cottage without proper planning permission
  • The barn was converted into a snack kiosk
  • Ms Hathaway, Shakespeare’s wife, lived in the farmhouse as a child and was courted there by the writer
  • Stratford District Council has requested the trust apply for retrospective planning permission

By
Alex Ward


PUBLISHED:

10:29 GMT, 20 September 2012


|

UPDATED:

16:11 GMT, 20 September 2012

A Tempest Is brewing in Shakespeare’s hometown after a historic building at the cottage where his wife spent her childhood was turned into a snack kiosk.

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, responsible for the upkeep of the cottage, gutted the Grade I listed thatched barn earlier this year without planning permission.

The barn in Shottery, Stratford was used as a pea shed in the early part of the last century until it was converted into a snack kiosk and cafe for tourists in April.

The thatched building, pictured, is part of the Grade I listing but the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust claim they did not realise it had the classification which required building consent

Shakespeare’s wife: A barn on the farmhouse site, pictured, where Anne Hathaway lived as a child was converted into a snack kiosk without proper planning permission

But an investigation into the building work has revealed that the trust, who is responsible for the upkeep of the Shakespeare houses in and around Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, failed to apply for planning permission to change the use of the barn.

The site of the cottage which includes the barn in question was where Ms Hathaway lived as a child and where Shakespeare courted his future bride.

‘New information’: The barn, which was used as a pea shed in the early part of the 20th century, became a snack kiosk, pictured, in April. A trust spokesman said the Grade I listing was ‘new information’

Council request: After failing to apply for planning permission, the trust has been requested by Stratford District Council to apply for retrospective planning permission, which if refused will mean the building, pictured with new renovations, will have to be returned to its original state

Part of the site: The barn, pictured, is considered inside the site of the 12-bedroom cottage, which was built in the early 1460s, and so Grade I listed

Roy Steele, programme manager for the trust, said today that the shed was converted because they did not know it was Grade I listed.

He said: ‘We have been requested, in effect, to put things right by putting in a retrospective planning application.

‘The fact the pea shed was Grade I listed was new information.

‘The shed is not a Tudor building and was probably erected sometime in the first half of the 20th century.

‘In April, we were confident that we wouldn’t need a planning application.’

Shakespeare, right, is believed to have courted his future wife Ms Hathaway, left, at the historic farmhouse

But it was revealed that the trust violated planning laws when Stratford District Council informed them that because the shed was inside the site of the 12-bedroom cottage which was built in the early 1460s and so part of the curtilage listing. This meant it was subject to the same strict planning restrictions as Grade I listed properties.

The Grade I classification means the building is of exceptional interest, sometimes even considered to be internationally important. While the grade does not mean the building cannot be altered, it does require building consent within government planning guidance.

The council ordered the trust to apply for retrospective planning permission.

The trust has until November 5 to make a final application before the matter goes before the council’s planning committee.

If the council rejects the application, the trust may be forced to transform the shed back to its original condition.

A spokeswoman said: ‘If the claimant loses their planning application the council could force them to convert the building back to its original state before the building work took place.’

The plans: When the trust did the planned renovations, pictured, they were ‘confident’ they did not need planning permission. They now have until November 5 to make a final application for retrospective planning permission

LIFE AS SHAKESPEARE’S WIFE IN A SEEMINGLY UNHAPPY MARRIAGE

Anne Hathaway lived in the farmhouse in Shottery, Stratford as a child and it is believed that Shakespeare courted her there.

She married him in November 1582. It is believed that at the time of their marriage, Ms Hathaway was 26-years-old and pregnant and Shakespeare was just 18-years-old. It appears that the couple conceived the child out of wedlock and so rushed to get married despite the fact that marriages were not traditionally performed at that time of the year.

Some historians speculate that the marriage was an unhappy one and that the couple were forced together by the pregnancy.

She had two daughters and one son.

Six months after their marriage, their first daughter Susanna was born. Twins Hamnet and Judith followed in 1585 but Hamnet died when just 11-years-old. Four years later, Shakespeare wrote Hamlet, a play which has been suggested to have been inspired by his grief at loosing his only son.

It has been claimed that one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, number 145, makes reference to Ms Hathaway with the words ‘hate away’ as a possible pun on ‘Hathaway’ and another line: ‘And saved my life’, in Elizabethan pronunciation, would have been indistinguishable in pronunciation from ‘Anne saved my life’.

Ms Hathaway died in 1623, aged 67-years-old, and is buried next to Shakespeare’s grave inside Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The comments below have not been moderated.



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– accessalleras , Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 20/9/2012 17:08

If you read the article again I believe you will find that this building was erected early in the twentieth century.

Alice
,

SW France, France,
20/9/2012 21:23

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Much ado about nothing – considering Stratford Man didn’t write The Works anyway – it was the Earl of Oxford wot dunnit!

jadamson
,

uk,
20/9/2012 20:58

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Much ado about nothing – considering Stratford Man didn’t write The Works anyway!

jadamson
,

uk,
20/9/2012 20:54

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Say what? A ‘Trust’ to Shakespeare’s birthplace didn’t know about the listing? Pull the other one. Anyone with a grain of sense would know that such an old structure would be listed and for what, a horrible cafe. They should be ashamed of themselves, greed knows no bounds.

accessalleras
,

Edinburgh, United Kingdom,
20/9/2012 17:08

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This will be the only building remembered by the majority of visitors…

paevo
,

USA, United States,
20/9/2012 16:54

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It’s just a shed, get over you sad people!!!!

Dave
,

The real world,
20/9/2012 16:01

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These people are absolute idiots for not realising they needed planning permission on a GRADE I LISTED BUILDING!!! What an absolute joke!

whatever
,

wherever,
20/9/2012 15:09

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That’s nothing compared to the huge housing estate they want to build just round the corner from this cottage on open fields.

Jo
,

London,
20/9/2012 15:06

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Now “pull the other one – it has bells on it”
Inconceivable that they spent money on such a renovation and establishment of a business in this particular place

alan
,

nottingham, United Kingdom,
20/9/2012 14:34

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Doesn’t it look lovely? I particularly like the tasteful placing of the glass-fronted fridge, don’t you? We have to have places like this for those who are incapable of making themselves a sandwich or two in advance for all the ‘large’ people who, it seems, have to punctuate every bit of their day by eating and drinking. Modern-day Britain – smashin’, innit?

Patriot
,

London,
20/9/2012 14:05

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