ON THE GARDEN PATH by Carolyn Herriot

I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk roses and with eglantine.
– From A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare

It was fascinating visiting the original home of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway – an Elizabethan cottage situated on a 90-acre farm called ‘Hewlands’ in Anne’s day – in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in 1582, when he was 18 and she was 26 and pregnant with their first child. Apparently, in those days, this was quite acceptable as having as many children as possible to help with demanding farm chores was most desirable. William and Anne had three children altogether: Susanna was born in May 1583 and the twins Hamlet and Judith were born two years later. Anne outlived William by seven years.

We think life is tough these days! Together with their family, William and Anne lived in a cottage with walls made from willow wattles packed with mud clay and straw and cow manure. There was no glass in the open windows and they slept propped up in four-poster beds, on tiny, rock-hard straw mattresses. Above them, ceilings opened to the thatched roof, from out of which rats dropped.

Anne Hathaways's cottage.

The open fireplace, which was never allowed to extinguish, spewed smoke into the home 24 hours a day and the family cleaned their teeth with ash from the fire mixed with soot. These were just a few tidbits we gleaned from the informative tour guide on our tour of the cottage.

After ducking through low doorways, squeezing through dark, narrow hallways and nearly slipping down treacherous stairways, I was relieved to step out into the blaze of colour of a fully planted Shakespearian cottage garden. It was filled with flowers, shrubs and herbs popular in Shakespeare’s time – lupins, sweet peas, hollyhocks, delphiniums and roses – surrounded by neatly clipped box hedges, which capture the flavour of Elizabethan England.

It is known that Shakespeare was familiar with flowers and greatly loved them. Not only did he take an interest in the cultivation of plants and trees, but he also had an accurate knowledge of gardening practices, such as grafting and pruning. An orchard to the right of the cottage slopes gently up through apple and pear trees to a view of the countryside across fields once tilled by the Hathaways and which are thought to have inspired many of Shakespeare’s plays.

Herbs and heritage vegetables were grown on an adjoining terrace, many of which I still grow today, thanks to many generations of gardeners who saved the seeds from their best plants for the following year’s harvest. I am full of gratitude to these gardeners for I am still saving seeds from their original plants.

As we can see from our visit to Shakespeare’s home, we have much to be grateful for today, but there is also much to be learned from the foundations of our heritage, lest we forget the beauty and simplicity of living closer to the land.

Carolyn Herriot is author of A Year on the Garden Path: A 52-Week Organic Gardening Guide. She grows Seeds of Victoria at the Garden Path Centre where she teaches The Zero Mile Diet - Twelve Steps to Sustainable Homegrown Food Production and Growing an Edible Plant Business. www.earthfuture.com/gardenpath