Shakespeare’s kitchen discovered in dig

Archaeologists find hearth and cold storage pit while digging up bard’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Archaeologists have found Shakespeare’s kitchen during a dig at the bard’s home in Stratford-upon-Avon.

A hearth and cold storage pit, fragments of plates, cups and other cookware were also found during the dig led Staffordshire University's Centre of Archaeology.
The team also found a hearth at New Place, which was bought by Shakespeare in 1597 and where he lived for 19 years.

According to the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, the dig revealed the breathing man behind the great works – “husband, father and son of Stratford".

Dr Paul Edmondson told the BBC: "Once we had uncovered the family's oven we were able to understand how the rest of the house fitted around it.

"The discovery of the cooking areas, brew house, pantry and cold storage pit, combined with the scale of the house, all point to New Place as a working home as well as a house of high social status.

"At New Place we can catch glimpses of Shakespeare the playwright and country-town gentleman.

“His main task was to write and a house as impressive as New Place would have played an important part in the rhythm of his working life.”

The site will be opened by the trust next summer to help mark the 400th anniversary of the bard’s death.

Work on excavating the ruins began five years ago, just over 250 years after it was demolished.

Little remained of the property which Shakespeare bought when he returned home after living in London.

Experts had hoped to discover evidence that the bard wrote many of his plays at New Place, rather than in London where he also owned property.

Shakespeare’s Globe theatre on the banks of the Thames river in London.

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