Stratford upon Avon

And then to the Stratford Manor Hotel - double room all for one, wide screen TV - so much food, so little time! But I did my best with fresh fruit, ham and cheese and Danish pastry for breakfast followed by mackerel salad and blackcurrant cheesecake for lunch. Dined out the night before on duck spring roll, mushroom stroganoff and raspberry and white chocolate cheesecake.

Had the most deelish smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich from the take away next to Pizza Hut.

What a lovely bendy house - and it's NOT the police station which is further up the lane - so couldn't they have put their sign somewhere better than in front of one of the most photogenic houses in Stratford?!

And this is the hedge of New Place - a pruning nightmare!

But then those pesky 18th century tourists kept hanging over the wall to peer at Shakespeare's house - so he asked the Council to reduce his taxes - they wouldn't so Rev Gastrell demolished the house!! He then left town rather quickly. This is the well which was in the courtyard and some of the foundations can be just seen on the right.

So where is Shakespeare's own house, New Place? Well this is part of the garden and the tree is a mulberry, supposedly a shoot from the original planted by Shakespeare. A Rev Gastrell lived here in the 1750s and was so fed up with the tourists who came into his garden to take pieces off the tree as souvenirs - he chopped it down!

A weekend work trip to Stratford upon Avon but managed to fit in a guided tour - Stratford is lovely - a mixture of really old and new - but here is the main tourist attraction - Shakespeare's birthplace.