MARY ARDEN'S HOUSE
AND WILMCOTE

This picture shows the Arden's farmhouse at Wilmcote, now known as Mary Arden's House.

Mary Arden's House, and the adjacent farm, Palmer's Farm (shown here and in the two pictures below), are now maintained and opened by The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

The various outbuildings at Mary Arden's House, and Palmer's Farm are used to house exhibits of medieval rural and farm life.

This is a wheelwright's shop, in one of the outbuildings.

During the Summer the barns are full of swallows (both inside the barns, and around the farmyards). The swallows are continually swooping in and out through the open doors.

The gardens at Mary Arden's House are meticulously maintained (see pictures above). At many places around the garden and around the farmyard are flowers growing in nooks and crevices. A good example are these stinging nettles growing by a barn door. This is exactly how you would expect to see nettles growing in a real farm. They look completely natural. In some cases you can't tell the difference between plants that have been put there by the gardeners, and those growing wild. To gardeners interested in naturalistic and cottage garden styles, Mary Arden's House is a very good example to visit.

Mary Arden's House is also the base for Heart of England Falconry. Demonstrations are staged frequently. The falconers will explain to visitors the references to falconry in Shakespeare's plays.

Here a party of schoolchildren are handling an owl. The picture just below shows a wider view of the same scene.

Quite near are some enclosures with a collection of old varieties of livestock. The cows shown here are very big animals, and the visitors can get very close. It's possible to touch the animals. Mary Arden's house is the least well known of the Shakespeare houses, but certainly the most interesting to visit.

Feeding swans on the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, at Wilmcote, two hundred yards from Mary Arden's House.

This shows the quaint footbridge over the railway at Wilmcote Station. Across the fields in the background lies Snitterfield.

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