At the age of 33, the year following his son Hamnet’s death, William Shakespeare had enough money to invest perhaps £120 (about $25,000) in a new house in his hometown. At 60 feet long, New Place was the second largest home in Stratford-upon-Avon. The brick house was equipped with leaded windows and ten chimneys. It had two barns and two orchards on the property. Unfortunately, the building no longer exists. The home was demolished by a subsequent owner, Reverend Francis Gastrill, in 1759.
Built toward the end of the 1400s by Hugh Clopton, New Place was about 100 years old when Shakespeare bought the property in 1597. After Clopton’s descendants sold the house, it was passed between several owners before William Underhill purchased the house in the fall of 1567. He owned the home until his death three years later, upon which ownership of the house passed to his son, William Underhill II. He owned New Place for nearly thirty years before selling it to Shakespeare. As the owner of New Place, Shakespeare had a special pew reserved for him at church, named the Clopton Pew
after the home’s original builder.
The purchase of New Place illustrates Shakespeare’s increasing affluence at the time. He was a successful theatrical entrepreneur in London who maintained his family’s position and comfort in Stratford while he lived in London in rented rooms. Later, prior to his retirement to his hometown, from 1609 until 1611, his good friend Thomas Greene’s family shared the spacious house with the Shakespeares while Greene’s home was being finished.
The process of purchasing the house was complicated, since there was a scandal to clear up before Shakespeare could take full possession. William Underhill, the previous owner of New Place, was poisoned two months after selling the property and died in July 1597. His 19-year-old son, Fulke, was found guilty of the crime and hanged in March 1599. Following this complex drama of his home’s previous owners, Shakespeare had to wait until 1602, when Underhill’s second son Hercules came of age, before he could finally conclude the last aspects of the property deal, though some sources argue that he had nearly full ownership and was in possession of the house by February of 1598.
The expense of buying New Place may have created some financial problems for Shakespeare, since his name appears as a defaulter on the payment of taxes on 15 November 1597. He owed a sum of five shillings (1/4 of one pound). Nearly a year later, on 1 October 1598, Shakespeare was listed again as being in arrears, this time for thirteen shillings and four pence.
Although New Place was demolished in 1759, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust owns the property on which it sat, as well as the property next door, a home once owned by Thomas Nash. In celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in 2016, the Trust unveiled a newly renovated garden with numerous new sculptures and other displays at New Place that allows visitors to walk the footprint of the home and explore Shakespeare’s life through an exhibition.