#Thursdaydoors

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Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

I have missed two weeks of Thursday doors so apologies for those I promised to share pictures of our visit to Anne’ Hathaway’s house near Stratford-on-Avon. Work is settling down now and people are going on holiday for Easter so I am getting this post in early on a Thursday.

Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage is a twelve-roomed farmhouse where she lived as a child. The cottage is in the village of Shottery, Warwickshire, England, about 1 mile west of Stratford-upon-Avon.

The earliest part of the house was built prior to the 15th century and the higher part is 17th century. Anne’s father was a farmer and after his death, the cottage was owned by her brother Bartholomew. It remained in the Hathaway family until 1846, when financial problems forced them to sell it. It was, however, still occupied by the Hathaway’s as tenants until it was acquired in 1892 by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Michael in the doorway. They are very low.
The same door – Greg has to bend his head (he was much shorter then than now).
This is the kitchen. I have a fascination with old kitchens.

You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2021/04/01/naubuc-historic-district-thursday-doors/

Published by robertawrites235681907

I am a writer of young adult fiction and poetry

Published

78 thoughts on “#Thursdaydoors”

  5. Thanks the the titbit of history, Robbie. I played Anne Hathaway in a play when I was at school.
    The house is bigger than I would have thought and, of course, the doorways are short.

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    1. Hi Norah, I’m glad you enjoyed this. How nice to have been in a play about Anne Hathaway, we never learned about Shakespeare the man when I was at school. We only learned some of his play. The people were much smaller in those days.

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      1. It was fun to play Anne. I don’t remember much about it though. It was called ‘The Second Best Bed’ and was set after Shakespeare’s death. I think Anne felt she should have received more when he died but I’d have to look up the details to be sure.

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    1. Hi Liz, I’m glad you enjoyed these pictures. It is not a cottage, despite its name. Anne’s father was well off and the house was quite large. I understood that people were simply much smaller in those days. I know when we visited the Viking village in York, the doorways were exceptionally low and I would have been tall and not short then.

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      1. During the Gilded Age in the US in the latter part of the 19th century, the wealthy would repair to their summer “cottages” in Newport, Rhode Island with upwards of 50 rooms!

        I know that people have become taller over the centuries, but it’s still hard to imagine many adults under five feet tall.

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  8. What a lovely home. I also like seeing old kitchens. I’m glad the home has been preserved by the trust. Your boys must have felt like giants walking through that door. Thanks for sharing this with Thursday Doors and for adding the history. I hope work winds down and you get to enjoy the weekend.

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    1. Hi Dan, thank you, I am off this weekend as we slaved last weekend and week in order to ensure we got Easter. I’m glad you enjoyed these pictures. My boys are now very long and lanky and would need to bend to go through these doors.

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      1. I need to get back to the UK. I only visited once, and we did a super quick tour, though I made sure we hit as many ancient sites as medieval 😉 Anne Hathaway’s was a highlight of “new” places we visited.

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    2. We visited Mary Arden’s farm [Shakespeare’s mother] and I’ll post about that next week and William Shakespeare’s birth place. We didn’t get to the house he lived in when he was old and died in. We’ll have to go back.

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      1. I want to imagine the people walking through who lived there, or you speculated in Nethergate, take up residence there after death. Those ghosts should scare me but instead, I felt gratified some of them (not all) had a sanctuary.

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    1. The British preserve everything, Diana. If it wasn’t for the British, I don’t think we know nearly as much as we do about history. They are prolific recorders of history through letters and diaries. It is amazing and admirable.

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  22. I wish we knew more about Anne Hathaway beyond the fact that she was the wife of William Shakespeare. I read a couple of Shakespeare’s biographies – Peter Ackroyd’s was brilliant. It seems that her personality and relationship to Shakespeare will continue to be the subject of much speculation by many historians and writers. A wonderful post about doors the take us back to the past.

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      2. The reply was sent before I add the words Yikes! ““I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”

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  23. Currently my wife and I are watching a British TV show called, “Shakespeare and Hathaway.” It’s about two modern day private investigators in Stratford – it’s a little hearted comedy and lots of fun. Also I have a brother-in-law who lived for many years in Stratford, but not in a house like that.

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    1. Hi Jan, I don’t think there were very many tall people back then so it probably wasn’t a problem. I read somewhere that the ceilings were low to facilitate heating, but people were also smaller because they had a different diet.

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  26. Roberta you can skip 3 or 4 weeks if you come back with farmhouses like this. Though I might miss the door for staring at the thatch roof. I love the way it flows around the windows. And if you keep throwing in old kitchens you just might get a few more weeks MIA waived ! Lovely

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    1. Hi John, this really is a lovely looking house. I also think thatch is very pretty. I won’t have it here in the Transvaal, South Africa, because of the lightening and fire risk. Next week it will be Mary Arden’s [Shakespeare’s mother] farm in the same area.

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    1. I am glad you enjoyed them. I didn’t know about some of the site in this area when we visited in 2018. I also want to go back and see everything else. The UK is like a box of chocolates, everywhere you go there is something wonderful to experience.

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  30. Robbie, this is a terrific doors post. How interesting about the low doorways. I know people were much shorter back then, but those look low even with that in mind. Old kitchens fascinate me too, even though I’m not much of a cook. So I can see why they would intrigue a baker like you.
    The age of palaces and public buildings in Europe and the UK is amazing, but to think of a residence — a home being built all those centuries ago (and still standing) is astounding to me. Great post all around. Hugs on the wing!

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  31. A lovely trip down memory lane…the doors on most older buildings like those are on the low side and generally with a step down which often caught me out…sigh…Happy Easter, Robbie 🙂 x

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