Table of Contents:
  • Cover; Half-title; Title page; Copyright information; Table of contents; List of figures; List of Plates; Foreword; Acknowledgements; Note on the text; Introduction: finding Shakespeare's New Place; References; 1 Ancient beginnings: the site of New Place from the prehistoric to the early medieval period; The prehistoric origins of Stratford-upon-Avon; An introduction to prehistoric archaeology; Agricultural and societal development in the Neolithic period; The Neolithic inhabitants of Stratford-upon-Avon; The Bronze Age in Stratford-upon-Avon; Societal change in the Iron Age.
  • Iron Age settlement within Stratford-upon-AvonThe New Place site in the Iron Age; What was found on site?; Sowing and harvesting of crops; Drying of corn, pot-boilers, and the use of fire-cracked stones; Crop storage; Later prehistoric pit alignments and pit clusters; The grinding of corn and use of rotary quernstones within the home; The pottery; The urbanisation of Stratford-upon-Avon; The Roman and Anglo-Saxon presence; The origins of modern Stratford-upon-Avon and 'Old Town'; Stratford-upon-Avon: an example of medieval town planning.
  • What trades were established in the newly established borough market town?The location: what was in the surrounding area?; The construction of the Guild Chapel and the possibility that there are associations with the New Place site; The site of New Place in the thirteenth century; The building from the 1200s to the 1400s; The layout of the building; The building's appearance; The building materials; Industrial and domestic activity on the site; The finds of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; The pottery of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
  • Continuation of occupation into the later fifteenth centuryReferences; 2 The origins of New Place: Hugh Clopton's 'grete house' of c. 1483; Hugh Clopton; New Place: Hugh Clopton's 'grete house'; What was Clopton's House like?; The front range; The cellar; The courtyard; The wells; The passage; The hall building; The hall service rooms: buttery/bake-house and pantry; The kitchen/brew-house; The parlour; Rear entrance, courtyard and outbuildings; The backplots (gardens); The construction materials of New Place; The artefacts; Comparable dwellings in and around Stratford-upon-Avon.
  • After Hugh CloptonReferences; 3 Shakespeare and Stratford-upon-Avon, 1564-96; The Shakespeares of Henley Street; What was Stratford-upon-Avon like?; Religion, morality and theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon; Shakespeare at school; No years lost: occupation, marriage and family life; Seeing plays in Stratford-upon-Avon; Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare and London; Financial and social investments; References; 4 Shakespeare and New Place, 1597-1616, and later occupants to 1677; Some residents of New Place before Shakespeare; New Place in Shakespearian biography.