Mary Arden's House And Countryside Museum

The farmhouse at Wilmcote, just three miles outside Stratford-Upon-Avon, the home of William Shakespeare's mother, is now a countryside museum; devoted to showing country life from Tudor times to the present day. Here you can see rare breeds of sheep, cattle and poultry. You will be interested to see the country customs of Warwickshire in displays of Quarrying, Wheel-wrighting and even a working Blacksmith's Forge. There are daily displays of Falconry, a sport much enjoyed in Tudor times, a farm walk and events to mark the farming calendar such as, Sheep Shearing, Harvest and Apple Day. With so much to see and do, not forgetting a visit to the farmhouse itself, you are offered a great day out for all the family.

Mary Arden inherited this beautiful Tudor style farmhouse and land, in 1556 from her father Robert, who was a prosperous gentleman farmer from an old Warwickshire family. The house was named after Shakespeare's mother some time in the eighteenth century, and continued as a working farm until 1930, when it was bought by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust for preservation. The materials used to build the house are from the same sources as those used in the building of Shakespeare's Birthplace. The house is close timbered with oak from the forest of Arden, and stone from the local quarry at Wilmcote. Furnished, as a farmhouse of the period would have been, with substantial oak country pieces. At the back of the house you can see the original farmyard, where you will find the old water pump and the original stone Dovecote. The barns and outbuildings, together with the adjoining Glebe farm, now house the Shakespeare Countryside Museum.

There is a café offering light refreshments and a free car park for visitors to the Countryside Museum. The education department of The Shakespeare Birthplace trust organises school programmes on Tudor rural life. For further information please Telephone 01789 201 848/9