Wanting to stay in the real Hamnet location?

Hamnet is a beautiful story which links the global literary icon that is William Shakespeare with rural life in his home town of Stratford-upon-Avon in the late sixteenth century. For fans of the Hamnet book or film, wanting to find the place to recreate the time and place, they can now stay at an old house just outside Stratford-upon-Avon that was already half a century old when Hamnet was set. Although most filming took place in Weobley, 60 miles away from Shakespeare’s home town, this holiday house is only 8 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, with the connections, as well as the age, to be interesting to Hamnet lovers.

The house, now known as Wisson Hill, was built in 1530 by the Bushell family, a local landowning family mentioned in the famous ‘Quiney letter’ to William Shakespeare in 1598. Given that there were far fewer people and houses around in Tudor times than there are now, and that William Shakespeare is said to have got drunk in Bidford-on-Avon, he may well have been aware of the house and farm just across the river, as he lurched his way back to Stratford.

Available for holiday lets, Wisson Hill is about as close as it is possible to get to staying in the sort building featured in Hamnet. The exposed and soot-blacked oak and elm timbers would have looked down on Agnes’s local contemporaries, as they too feared plague outbreaks. Signs of superstition are all around the building, with dozens of burn marks to protect against fire, and a faint but distinct hexafoil – or daisy wheel – witch mark.

During the 20-year restoration project, a range of items have been found, from Tudor pottery fragments to an off-cut of fine leather with tiny stitches, apparently from a craft such as glove-making. Domestic items found in and around the house are displayed in the study, which also has a private collection of books, ranging from Tudor and local history to timber frame building restoration.

The house is now offered for weekly lets, with guests invited to sleep under beams that were already old in 1596, when Hamnet died, and sit outside with a glass of wine, next to some of the herbs that were so important to rural folk, including bay, rosemary and lavender.

The countryside around the Warwickshire hamlet of Barton, on the River Avon, is very much Shakespeare’s country and visitors to the area can walk from the door through the sort of woodland and fields that would have been familiar to his family. A 10 minute walk across the meadow brings you to the medieval arched bridge that was a critical local Avon crossing plate in Shakespeare’s day, and into Bidford-on-Avon where the Falcon Inn, where he is reputed to have drunk, is still a fine stone building on the marketplace, although now privately owned.

Herself inspired by another great book, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, the owner made a small pair of wings from peacock feathers and hung them from an iron nail beneath the oak timbers. Wisson Hall was built in 1530, the year Thomas Cromwell was appointed to achieve annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

The area around this holiday home is rich in history, from royal Tudor landmarks and connections, through the Shakespeare properties in and around Stratford-upon-Avon, to the tiny connections through local flower and bird names.

Please get in touch if you would like to find out more, or check wissonhill.com for holiday accommodation pricing and availability.

For clarity, the film Hamnet was not filmed at this location, but this house is of the right age (sixteenth century), type (built as a farmhouse) and location (8 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon). Wisson Hill is unusual in being left fairly undeveloped, so guests can see – and stay in – the sort of stripped back Tudor building that is usually only seen on a film set.