Present Day
Adjoining the Birthplace is the Shakespeare Centre, a contrasting modern glass and concrete visitors centre which forms the headquarters of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. The driving force behind its construction, and opening in 1964, was Dr Levi Fox, OBE, Director of the Trust from 1945 to 1989, with a view to properly housing its library, documents and collections. As well as showing Shakespeare-related displays, the Shakespeare Centre also provides public access to the Birthplace.
The Birthplace recreates a picture of family life at the time of Shakespeare complete with period domestic furnishings, a glass window inscribed with the signatures of visitors to the house over the centuries, and John Shakespeare's glove making workshop. There is also a display relating the tale of Mrs Hornby.
Other exhibitions illustrate the changing occupancy and functions of the Birthplace (from Shakespeare's time onwards): as a home, workshop, inn, butcher's shop, literary shrine and visitor attraction.
The walled garden at the back of the house has been specially planted with flowers and herbs that would have been known in Shakespeare's time.
Read more about this topic: Shakespeare's Birthplace
Famous quotes containing the words present and/or day:
“Those who wander in the world avowedly and purposely in pursuit of happiness, who view every scene of present joy with an eye to what may succeed, certainly are more liable to disappointment, misfortune and unhappiness, than those who give up their fate to chance and take the goods and evils of fortune as they come, without making happiness their study, or misery their foresight.”
—Frances Burney (1752–1840)
“Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)