The birthplace, situated in Henley Street, is of course the most interesting and important building in the eyes of Shakespearian “critics” and admirers alike. It is a half–timbered, two–storied building with dormer windows and a wooden porch, which although largely restored in 1857–58, may be considered to fairly represent the house as it stood at the time of the poet’s birth, great care having been taken at the time of restoration to follow every indication discoverable of its former state. Both the birthplace and the wool–shop adjoining were probably erected at the commencement of the sixteenth century, and at that period the house would have undoubtedly held rank as one of the better sort, and as forming a very comfortable residence for a tradesman in a small provincial town such as Stratford then was. But in those far–off Elizabethan days the environment of the house was very different from what it now is. We have already referred to the state of Stratford streets when rubbish and household refuse not only disfigured them, but made passage through them both difficult and unsavoury, and John Shakespeare would not seem to have been more particular than his neighbours, for we find that in April 1552 he was mulcted in the not then inconsiderable sum of twelve–pence for cleaning away the rubbish which he had allowed to accumulate in front of his own door. The roadway was probably little more than a deeply rutted track, with a walnut tree, which was standing as late as 1765, in front of the entrance door, and under the shade of which doubtless Shakespeare’s father, when his business was done, used to sit and gossip with his neighbours. Across the road was a pool of water (probably a duck pond), and at the rear of the house a garden and outbuildings. After John Shakespeare’s death, the dwelling probably remained in the occupation of his widow till her death in 1608, when it came into possession of Joan Hart, her sister. The poet himself left the house to her by will, and she lived in it until 1646. Shakespeare’s daughter Susannah Hall afterwards came into possession (having previously been the owner of the wool–shop), and from her it descended to her daughter Lady Barnard. Ultimately, after various owners and vicissitudes, the building was converted in 1784 into an open–fronted butcher’s shop, the windows and porch being removed to allow of a proper display of the stock in trade. The wool–shop next door had long previously, in 1603, become an inn, called at first “The Maidenhead,” and afterwards “The Swan and Maidenhead.” Its front was faced with brickwork in 1808, and some forty years later the buildings were bought for the nation, and ten years afterwards were restored, as already mentioned.