Читать книгу Summer Days in Shakespeare Land - Charles G. Harper - Страница 7

The village constable referred to was well known to one Josias Howe, son of the rector, born at Grendon, March 29th, 1612, died August 28th, 1701, who told Aubrey the story at Oxford, in 1642.

The lofty gabled red brick and timber end of Shakespeare Farm, illustrated here, is the earlier part of the building, although the whole of it is probably as old as Shakespeare’s time. That earlier wing, the part to which tradition points, is not now occupied, and is, in fact, in a very dilapidated condition, occasional floorboards, and even some of the stairs, being missing. Where the wearied guests of long ago rested, broody hens are set by the careful farmer’s wife on their clutches of eggs. There is little interesting in the architectural way in these dark and deserted rooms, but the flat, pierced, wooden banisters of the staircase are genuinely old and quaint.