Time Team Excavate New Place

Channel 4's Time Team made a contribution to our knowledge, or at least our theories, of Shakespeare's life in last night's broadcast of the excavation of New Place.

In their jaunty and user-friendly way, they seemed to establish the likelihood that the facade of Startford's second biggest property was all front. The five-gabled frontage was almost certainly the gatehouse occupied by servants and staff. It led immediately into a courtyard and the Shakespeares, which for most of the time from 1597 onwards were Anne, Susannah and Judith lived in a less grand-looking building behind it. It seems a brewhouse would have been among the outhouses lining the courtyard along the side and the orchards and gardens were behind it. Why it was suggested that beer would have been made in the brewhouse rather than cider wasn't clear to me but a ready supply of apples in the immediate vicinity made that seem a worthwhile guess. It would appear that they also found a laundry but their imaginings that Shakespeare's underwear was boiled there was undermined by a reluctance to include the idea that Shakespeare is unlikely to have spent very much time there until about 1612 since it is thought he was only there as a full-time resident after a semi-retirement. The programme seemed determined to imagine Shakespeare writing plays there but that's not very likely.

Germaine Greer was brought in to provide the briefest precis of her Shakespeare's Wife book when she explained that Anne would have overseen the upgrading of the house which was in a state of some disrepair when the Shakespeare's bought it. There was also some surprise at how Shakespeare could afford the house when he was paid 6 pounds for writing a play and produced two a year although it wasn't mentioned that he was also a theatre owner in London as well as an actor and so had several income streams from his work there, and The Globe could hold three thousand paying customers for each performance.

Tony Robinson was delighted to be standing where Shakespeare might have stood but he'd been in the birthplace, Holy Trinity Church, the Rose Theatre and could have gone to Southwark Cathedral so he wasn't short of equally likely places to do that. And so although, as one might have expected, the programme did more to shed light on the building than it did its one-time owner and it was never less than interesting, as ever, pursuing small clues to find more about the man was a speculative and difficult enterprise that leaves much unproven.

However, the history of New Place continued after Shakespeare's death by being left to Susannah, who 'probably lived there with Anne' afterwards. That is Susannah, the favourite daughter, who was well set up having married the physician, John Hall, not Judith, who married less well and who might have needed it more. Why that might have been wasn't a question they found time to pursue but it might have provided a lead into the family history. It might only be because Judith lived the longest that there wasn't room for her grave alongside the rest of the family in Holy Trinity but she is still noticeable by her absence there, too.

Possible reasons for that can be found elsewhere on this website under the 'Shakespeare' label.