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The Man Who Demolished Shakespeare’s Last Home
In 1742 the actors David Garrick and Charles Macklin, were sitting drinking wine with Sir Hugh Clopton under the huge mulberry tree in New Place’s great garden. They were celebrating the 27 year old Garrick’s acting debut in London, as King Richard III, just a few days before. The great garden stretched down to the river’s edge, where the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) sits today, with Shakespeare’s old house a cool and welcoming timber building with ivy and clematis covering virtually all of the outside walls. Shakespeare had died there in 1616 propped-up in bed so that he could see the mulberry tree he’d planted just a few years earlier.
The first Sir Hugh Clopton, a courtier of Henry VII, had not only built the stone bridge over the Avon in the 15th century but also New Place as a family home.
A much later Sir Hugh — the one now drinking wine with Garrick and Macklin — had recently purchased the house and gardens so that he could ensure it became a proper monument to Shakespeare’s memory.
Suddenly Garrick stood and proposed a toast.
“ Sir, I propose a toast to Shakespeare’s dear house, his dear garden, and his very dear mulberry tree planted by his own dear hand. May they never perish and remain forever a reminder of the people’s poet.”
