Shakespeare Outside Stratford Upon Avon Library
by Terri Waters
Title
Shakespeare Outside Stratford Upon Avon Library
Artist
Terri Waters
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
Not many libraries look like the one in Henley Street Stratford Upon Avon Warwickshire. The library is housed in a gorgeous 16th century timber-frame building with plaster infill on rubble base. It is a stones throw away from Shakespeare's birthplace.
The building was restored and extended 1901-2 by EG Holtom, and incorporating former Technical School of 1899 by AS Flower.
In 1902 the American millionaire and philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, agreed to a request to provide a public library for the people of Stratford-upon-Avon.
Various important local people, including the novelist Marie Corelli, were asked whether it should be sited in the Market Hall or in Henley Street, near to Shakespeare's Birthplace. Marie Corelli had moved to Stratford some three years earlier and felt that it would be sacrilege to place a modern building so close to the birthplace, especially since it would entail the demolition of some old cottages that could well have been there in Shakespeare's time.
It was subsequently established that two of the five cottages had belonged to Shakespeare's granddaughter and Marie Corelli was able to point out that the Trustees had no "power or right to sell or destroy any property that had belonged to William Shakespeare or any member of his family".
These cottages were preserved, which no doubt gave her some satisfaction.
Marie Corelli is reported as calling Henley Street "the centre aisle of the cathedral of literature" and nothing should destroy it.
The building was saved and this was the first example of a successful local conservation campaign.
Outside the library was a living statue dressed as the Bard himself, making all the passers by jump as he slowly moved to face them.
The term living statue refers to a mime artist who poses like a statue or mannequin, usually with realistic statue-like makeup, sometimes for hours at a time.
Living statue performers can fool passersby and a number of hidden camera shows on television have used living statues to startle people. As with all performing arts, living statue performers may perform as buskers.
Uploaded
February 26th, 2013
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