Anne Hathaway's Cottage

We really loved our visit to Anne’s house. Located on the outskirts of town, it’s setting with the gardens and orchard were absolutely idyllic. In the house, there were staff at different locations, explaining and demonstrating different parts of the home and how certain items (like the oven) worked. They were highly informative and added to our visit. Rooms also had many signs with background info. They sell cider from the apples on the farm (as well as many other souvenirs). I found it to be both quiet at relaxing at the time of our visit.

Beautifully preserved in all its original condition. We bought the "ALL-IN" ticket for Shakespeare's birthplace, the gardens and here. Built originally in the late 1400s it was first rented and then bought, with 90 acres, by the family and expanded by the brother. Anne was born here, met William......... The guides were very good, especially John, knowledgeable and friendly. It is not a large place and not far from Stratford so if your time is short you may be able to do all three in a day. Slope and steps to the cottage but not as easy inside the cottage. Toilets and a very good cafe on site, lovely countryside.

Visited the cottage as part of the package ticket we purchased to see various Shakespeare sites. Went on a Monday afternoon in September and it was quiet, free of the tourist groups. The volunteers we interacted with were extremely knowledgeable and friendly, explaining the history and interesting facts. There is a nearby car park that you have to pay to park, and it’s a short walk to the cottage.

We were lucky to have beautiful weather which made for great outdoor photos, the guides we're very informative with the History of the cottage. It is in beautiful condition. Hopefully it'll be around for many more years to come, for the future visitors to enjoy it as we did

Absolutely charming place! 🏡✨ Anne Hathaway’s Cottage is a beautiful slice of history surrounded by peaceful gardens and flowers that look straight out of a fairy tale 🌸🌿 The house itself is full of character — you can really imagine Anne and young Shakespeare wandering around here, planning sonnets and secret dates 😄🎭 Lovely staff, well-maintained grounds, and plenty of photo spots (especially for hopeless romantics like me 💕). A must-visit when in Stratford-upon-Avon — I’d happily come back every year! 🌷📸

Seriously fantastic guides, incredible place. As a native of the UK, I've visited many historic places. I just get transported to another dimension with my imagination. The little stories the guides now really help. Thanks to all those that helped us with understanding the incredible piece of history we were standing in.

A lovely cottage in extensive grounds, with lots of history. Worth taking time, looking at the exhibits, and particularly listening to and conversing with the guides. All were knowledgeable, and presented in an interesting way. Recommended

A beautiful location and the house and grounds were lovely, especially the orchard and the sculptures. Front garden was empty which was a shame but we think they were revamping and considering the recent hot weather doesn't difficult to keep plants going. Susan the tour guide at the front of the house was excellent and friendly well work a listen to, to get the background story. the Cafe opposite was super clean and had a small but excellent menu and gardens to sit in.

Ok, if you are looking for the place where Anne Hathaway grew up, well, you are pretty much in the wrong place, unless the Anne Hathaway you are looking for happens to be the wife of William Shakespeare, then you are in the right place. So, when you get a ticket to the Shakespeare house, you also get admission to this place as well. The thing is that it is a bit of a hike out of town, but it is pretty cool, especially considering that it is a tudor farmhouse.

I truly wish I could relay how beautiful this cottage is, however before I could even get up the ramp, a most unfortunately assertive individual took it upon herself to run out and greet me with a welcome that only the truly emotionally inept could muster. Apparently my name is "you can't take cases in here", repeated twice in quick succession just on the off-chance I did not hear her on the first flat out rude and blustering attempt. As I looked down at my case, a carry-on size pulley, I thought to myself, c'est la vie, the rules are the rules after all. However, in Shakespeare's land, one might have hoped for just a pinch of emotional intelligence in how to verbally greet a guest about to fork out £23 to see an attraction after they'd already paid £10 in a taxi to get there and per chance deliver the blow with a degree more eloquence? Madam, whoever you are, the service industry requires training of which you are clearly woefully lacking. That, or you are yet another of those odious cretins who relishes in unleashing their one minute of power assertion over... a prospective customer? Bravo! Shakespeare wouldn't bother turning in his grave over this, he wrote of plenty an ass and a fool in his time.

In our opinion this is one of the prime sites in Shakespeare country. William's wife Ann came from a prosperous family, and this is their handsome, perfectly-preserved home where she was born and raised. The access is easy, including extraordinary accommodation for handicapped visitors and an exceptionally friendly staff.

Anne Hathaway's Cottage is a small, 6-room (3 top / 3 bottom), rundown house that is famous for being the home of Anne - Shakespeare's wife. Where official descriptions get away w/ saying it's a "spacious 12 rooms" is beyond me The grounds are well kept & the house definitely reflects the period it was famous for Apparently the family lived on the bottom floor as the smoke from the fires would have filled the top floors, making it inhabitable back then.....but have now been furnished w/ "period" bedroom furniture to reflect their "modernization" £6.50 to get in & this is not included in the suite of Stratford upon Avon historic sights ticket Save your money & take your souvenir pics from the outside

This building is mostly neat because it's so darn old and was actually occupied (without electricity) until fairly recently. The fact that Shakespeare's wife lived here with her family is only what makes it famous. There are guides in the rooms that will give a bit of a speech about the house. Unfortunately they all pretty much say the same thing. While the house is really cool and the gardens beautiful, I wish that the guides where more informative. There is so much history here that they could do a better job.

Anne Hathaway is, to my mind, one of those fascinating figures of English history. For people familiar with Shakespeare's life at all, you hear about her a lot. Shotgun weddings, marital dislike and the fact that she was 8 years older than him, all add to the scandal. I found this house fascinating, even if no one notable had lived there, it is still a wonderful example of Tudor history. I note that only Americans have so far reviewed it, and seem to have found it smaller than expected. Trust me; it's spacious for the period. You need to visit the Museum of Welsh Life. Anne Hathaway was the caretaker of William Shakespeare after his retirement from London. Are we really going to be so old fashioned as to ascribe her place in history as 'merely Shakespeare's wife'? Perhaps more people would find it interesting if a movie were made about her. Dear me.

I think of all the Shakespeare houses I went to, this was my favorite. (I went to all of them except for Nash's House and New Place.) I guess Shakespeare's Birthplace should be more exciting and interesting, but I thought Anne Hathaway's Cottage was overall more educational and pleasant. The inside is very much like Shakespeare's Birthplace - it's small and there are a lot of old things - but it's really the outside that I enjoyed the most. It's not the sort of place that you just walk in and walk out of and that's it - you can really sit back and enjoy it. The gardens were exquisite. There's this lover's walk or something that you can take, which is very romantic, but I did it with a few of my friends and it was just as fun. There's a small forest that made me feel like I was in A Midsummer Night's Dream. The cottage also gives a new outlook on how people lived during Shakespeare's time. Usually, only glamorous palaces and castles are preserved, so it's rare to have a glimpse at how normal living was like. But thanks to Shakespeare's fame, Anne Hathaway's cottage was preserved so that we and future generations can see and experience it. If you purchased the Shakespeare Houses bundle tickets, this is definitely worth going to. And if you're considering just visiting one or two houses, I'd definitely recommend visiting Anne Hathaway's Cottage in addition to Shakespeare's Birthplace.

This is a fantastic place to visit- especially if you love Shakespeare. The cottage is set in a gorgeous garden- and if you're here in summer, you'll spend a lot of time in that garden. But be prepared to take pictures along the way, with the garden as your backdrop- it's truly lovely. The cottage itself is small, but really gives you a feeling for the time period it comes from. I enjoyed this place more than Shakespeare's birthplace- which just doesn't have the historical vibe this house has. Really, you will feel as if you've gone back in time. Don't miss this if you can help it. You won't be sorry you've visited here.

Lovely grounds, and the staff have some pretty great background information on the history and the families. Not only did I learn about the meaning behind the phrase "upper crust" but I also learned several bacon-related pieces of history and trivia. For starters, the Hathaway's possessed in their infinite wisdom a bacon cupboard in the front room adjacent to the main fireplace. Its *sole* function was to store and smoke bacon. Brilliant. The second piece of bacon wisdom had to do with the cratch, a series of small wooden slats between beams in the ceiling, which were used to dry herbs and flowers. When calling upon a home for business, if you happened to see a piece of bacon hanging from the cratch, it was a reflection of the wealth of the family and an indicator that you would be well received and fed a good meal. However, if you spied no bacon on the cratch, it meant you would be warmly received, but there was basically no chance you were getting a free meal.

This thatched-roof cottage was the home of Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's wife. Built in the 16th Century, the cottage retains much of its originality however due to restoration also has a lot of replication. The surrounding gardens are beautiful and are a charming little walk for couples. Guides on the site were helpful and friendly, providing an overview of the house's history. It was okay.

So this tourist spot is a bit out the way from the usual shakespeare town spots but well worth the visit if you have a car to drive around in, as it makes getting there a whole easier than walking in the cold, especially in february. It was wonderfully quiet and preserved on a Sunday in Feb, even if the flowers weren't quite ready to pop up. The place was actually Shakespeare's wife's house,which he then bought, then it got split into three. Incredibly interesting place- they've sourced most of the original furnishings and they're interactive. They have a speaker in every other room explaining the main purposes and I loved that, you could ask questions, it makes the experience far more personal than a big stately museum. They do like to ask you where youre from to get a more personalised approach but that was lost on me. Genuine Conversation below: Speaker: hello, hello- welcome to the cottage, where are you coming from? Me *flustered as we wasn't sure it was the right door*....errr that door? Speaker: but where did you come from? Me: That door, oh god, was that not the right door. Speaker: No I meant where did you come from? Me: ohhhhh. London. Yeah. Not my finest moments. Aside from that it was a beautiful and soaked in history! Go Here!

If you are making the tour of Shakespeare spots (and why else would you be in Stratford?) Anne Hathaway's Cottage is a bit out of town. If you have your own transport, it is very easy to get to and there is ample (paid) parking. There is public transportation, though we didn't explore it closely and it would be a Very Healthy Walk. The Cottage itself is in a quiet setting and it has lovely gardens (where they kept the pigs in Anne's day.) The cottage and contents are well maintained and the written explanations are clear. They tour guides at a couple of spots were very friendly, informative, and clearly enjoy their work. It is a great way to get a feel for a prosperous farming family in the late 16th and 17th centuries. Don't be put off by the distance. It is well worth the visit!

Lovely well preserved house of William Shakespeare's wife. Beautiful gardens and excellent staff.

We have now visited this cottage twice, once in the sun and once in the rain and it is definitely worth a visit. You can use the tourist bus (£11) which takes you round all the areas of interest in Stratford. The cottage is in the village of Shottery just outside Stratford. The cottage is by far the prettiest of all the Shakespeare houses. There is a orchard and Tree garden to explore.