Bard at work

Go Citybreak:It's where Shakespeare was born – 446 years ago this week – buried and lived half his life. What other reason do you need to head for Warwickshire, asks Ronan McGreevy

WE KNOW very little about the life of William Shakespeare, but we do know that he was born and died in Stratford-upon-Avon – facts that have made it the world’s pre-eminent literary tourist town.

This picturesque part of Warwickshire has a Food of Love cafe, a Much Ado About Toys games shop and even Romeo & Juliet’s lingerie shop, but it is all remarkably restrained. It is not a literary Lourdes.

Shakespeare probably spent half his life in Stratford – by the time he was 21 he had married Anne Hathaway here and had three children with her. One of the town’s main attractions is the Shakespeare family home on Henley Street, where the playwright is believed to have been born. Its facade is to a large extent the original half-timbered front, which looks more or less as it did 446 years ago this week, when he was born. Shakespeare, who was baptised at the town’s Holy Trinity Church on April 26th, 1564, was later left the house by his father, and it survived in the extended family until it became a place of literary pilgrimage, at the end of the 17th century.

Last year the visitor centre at the house exhibited a painting with an Irish connection that illustrates how incomplete our knowledge of Shakespeare is. Owned by the Anglo-Irish Cobbe family, it hung unrecognised in Newbridge House, in north Co Dublin, for centuries, assumed to be a portrait of Walter Raleigh. The original has since been returned to its owners, but the image is now everywhere in Stratford, where it is regarded as definitive.

The house’s Life, Love Legacy exhibition includes an original First Folio, the collection of “Mr William Shakepeares comedies, histories, tragedies” put together by two friends after his death on April 23rd, 1616, and published in 1623. Only 230 or so copies remain, and more than a third of them belong to the Folger Shakespeare Library, in Washington DC.

Shakespeare’s Birthplace, as the Henley Street house is known, is busy all year. Twenty-eight million visitors have passed through its reconstructed Elizabethan kitchen, dining room and workshop – Shakespeare’s father was a glover – and tramped up the stairs to the bedroom. With its lumpy Tudor bed, its cradle and its floral wallpaper, this is the very room where Shakespeare is believed to have been born.

You leave the house through a shop that sells Shakespeare swear boxes, Shakespeare insult mugs – “long-tongued, babbling gossip” – and Shakesbear teddies. The great man, who was no slouch at making money from his talent, would have been impressed.

A kilometre or two from the middle of Stratford, in Shottery, is Anne Hathaway’s Cottage, the beautiful and well-preserved thatched Tudor home where Shakespeare’s wife grew up. About all we know of Hathaway is that she was three months pregnant when she married Shakespeare, that she was eight years older than him (and outlived him, surviving to the then ripe old age of 67), that her father called her Agnes and that Shakespeare, infamously, left her “his second best bed”.

Upstairs you can see a reproduction of this dubious bequest, as well as the courting chair that would have been where the young Shakespeare sat as he attempted to woo his future wife – and convince her mother that his youthfulness was no impediment to marriage. The chair surfaced at an auction in 2002, having been missing for 200 years. It was recognised by a trust expert, who, understandably, told nobody – and bought it for just £1,800.

Also not far from the middle of Stratford, in the village of Wilmcote, is the farm where Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden, grew up. Amazingly, the sagging oak beams of this Tudor farmhouse still hold up the walls of the house despite the passing of the centuries.

Back in Stratford, you won’t be able to miss the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, which dominates every approach to the town. When it reopens later this year, after being rebuilt, its traditional proscenium arch will have been replaced by a thrust stage, to bring the audience within spitting distance of the cast. It will, according to the RSC, be the “best theatre in the world for watching Shakespeare”.

Shakespeare was laid to rest in the church where he had been baptised, a walk along the River Avon from the theatre. He and his immediate family are buried in a row in front of a side altar. The church also has a famous bust of a balding middle-aged man with a blank look – the poet as pork butcher, as one critic called it – that was erected in the first decade after Shakespeare’s death. Until the Cobbe painting was found, it had been regarded as as good a likeness as we were ever going to get. (While you are there, you might spot a memorial to a James Aldborough Dennis of Co Westmeath, who appears to be there for no other reason than that his wife was from Stratford.)

We think of Shakespeare, like his works, as immortal and immutable, but, just as his works are constantly being reinterpreted, our knowledge of his life, scant as it, is continually being expanded. For that reason Stratford is worth visiting.

Ronan McGreevy was a guest of Irish Ferries and Menzies Welcombe Hotel

Where to stay, where to eat and where to go in Shakespeare's town

5 places to stay

Menzies Welcombe Hotel, Spa Golf Club.Warwick Road, 00-44-1789-295252, welcombehotelstratford.co.uk. The only five-star hotel in – or just outside, in fact – a town that is one of England's biggest tourist draws. A facsimile of the First Folio is open in the lobby at whatever play the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is staging.

Mercure Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Hotel.Chapel Street, 00-44-1789- 294997, mercure.com. This Tudor-fronted hotel is a favourite with visitors.

Legacy Falcon Hotel.Chapel Street, 00-44-844-4119005, legacy-hotels.co.uk. This hotel, which dates back to the 17th century, was named the best in the midlands of England last year.

The White Swan.Rother Street, 00-44-1789-297022, pebblehotels.com. Part of this 500-year-old hotel used to be a bakery, and the owners like to speculate that Shakespeare might have bought his bread there. It is full of wood panelling, low beams and open fires.

Best Western Grosvenor.Warwick Road, 00-44-1789- 269213, bwgh.co.uk. A listed Georgian building, this hotel is popular with business tourists.

5 places to eat

Bernadettes.44 Guild Street, 00-44-1789-415542, bernadettesrestaurant.co.uk. This unpretentious three-storey restaurant with views of the Shakespeare Birthplace specialises in fish.

Jimmy Spice's. Windsor Place, 00-44-1789-296222, jimmyspices.co.uk. Part of a chain that serves Indian, Thai, Italian and Chinese dishes. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, but the food is good and surprisingly reasonable.

Countess of Evesham.Bancroft Gardens, Waterside, 00-44-7836-769499, countess ofevesham.mistral.co.uk. This barge moored in the shadow of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is a magnet for tourists.

Old Town Restaurant.Church Street, 00-44-1789- 268822, oldtownrestaurant. co.uk. For a midlands town, Stratford-upon- Avon has a lot of seafood restaurants. This is one of the best.

Garrick Inn.High Street, 00-44-1789-292186. Little is known about Shakespeare's death, but one story is that he died after a big drinking session, possibly at the Garrick. With its Tudor facade, low ceilings and old-world feel, this is Stratford's most famous pub.

5 places to go

Shakespeare's Houses Gardens.Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 00-44-1789- 204016, shakespeare.org.uk. The five houses run by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust are must-sees. Shakespeare's Birthplace, Hall's Croft, Nash's House and New Place are close to one another. Mary Arden's and Anne Hathaway's homes are a taxi ride away. The combined and family tickets are excellent value.

Stratford-upon-Avon Butterfly Farm.Swan's Nest Lane, 00-44-1789-299288, butterflyfarm.co.uk. In recognition that four-year-olds are not as thrilled by Hamlet as adults, the town has lots of distractions for children. This butterfly farm, the largest in Europe, also has many other insects, plus Arachnoland, home of the world's largest spider, a scorpion colony and other "spinners of webs and dealers of death".

The Falstaff Experience. 40 Sheep Street, 00-44-1789 298070, falstaffexperience. co.uk. Part ghost museum, part Tudor heritage site, and well worth a visit – though not if you're scared of things that go bump in the night.

The Creaky Cauldron.21 Henley Street, 00-44-1789- 290969, seekthemagic.org. From the ghost of Hamlet's father to the witches in Macbeth, Shakespeare's plays are full of the supernatural. The Creaky Cauldron bills itself as one of the best haunted museums in England.

Harvard House.High Street, 00-44-1789-204507. This house celebrates the life of the town's other most famous son, John Harvard. Strictly speaking he was from London, but his mother grew up in this house. A preacher who emigrated to the New World, he bequeathed half his fortune to the university that would be named after him.

Hot spot

Bancroft Gardens. Waterside, 00-44-1789-260616, stratford.gov.uk. Now it’s spring, everyone is sitting in this park by the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, watching the street entertainers – and the boats and swans going by.

Shop spot

Stratford-upon-Avon Butterfly Farm. Swan’s Nest Lane, 00-44-1789-299288, butterflyfarm.co.uk. The gift shop here sells high-quality wildlife gifts and books, toys, puzzles and fabulous jewellery – plus delicious biscuits, confectionery and ice cream.

Coffee spot

The Taming of the Brew. Creaky Cauldron, 21 Henley Street, 00-44-1789-290969, seekthemagic.org. Serves a range of unusual teas, including mint-and-chilli and seven other mint-based teas, plus organic, fairly traded and ethically sourced coffee and hot chocolate.

Go there:Aer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies to Birmingham, 30 minutes from Stratford, from Dublin and Cork. Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies from Dublin and Derry. Aer Arann (aerarann.com) flies from Waterford. BMI (flybmi.com) flies from Belfast and Knock.