A 'Nearly Twelfth Night' visit

I'm aware that I've seriously let the side down here since August.  New year's resolution is to try harder....

Canal basin frozen solid on January 5th. Bemused gulls standing on the ice, wondering where the water went...

My long (and very welcome!) Christmas holiday finally came to an end on January 9th. I made the most of the extra time post-New Year to make a flying visit to Stratford upon Avon, mainly to see the RSC production of 'The Rover' at the Swan Theatre and to visit the newly re-opened New Place gardens.  I love Stratford 'out of season' and this was probably the quietest I've ever seen it.

Because we were staying after the New Year holiday and the local schools had gone back we managed to get a very reasonable accommodation deal at the Shakespeare Hotel in Chapel Street, somewhere I was excited to stay because of its strong Benson connections.

There has been a 'hostelry' on this site since 1637 and the hotel's website promised 'creaking floorboards and winding staircases' which were both well in evidence.  We stayed in the older part of the hotel and I allowed myself some fanciful speculations about which Old Bensonians might have stayed in 'Belmont' in the past...

The old colonnaded entrance now graces Marks and Spencer's! 

The Shakespeare Hotel was run, in Benson's time, by the Justins family and was a favourite post-show haunt of the Bensons and their company when they were in Stratford.  In later days, it became the venue for the annual 'Old Bensonian' reunion lunches.

Beside the front door is a slate plaque which replaces one unveiled by Benson in the 1920s after extensive renovations had restored the Tudor frontage to the main entrance. Commemorating the First World War it was replaced by a grant from the War Memorials Trust in partnership with Mercure Hotels who now own the building.

http://www.warmemorials.org/search-grants/?gID=198

Incredibly cosy, the hotel boasted a couple of spectacular open log fires in the public areas of the hotel and we could quite easily have settled down with a good book and stayed there.  However, the weather was cold and crisp and perfect for walking and so we dragged ourselves out into the winter sun to rediscover the New Place gardens - one of my very favourite Stratford locations.

We had the gardens more or less to ourselves, which was lovely.  We've recently sponsored a hornbeam tree there as a memorial to a greatly missed friend and so we made its acquaintance and then rediscovered the peace and tranquillity of the gardens where we've spent so many summer afternoons over the years.  (As it was a very 'cold and frosty morning' we were also gratified to be able to go around the mulberry bush!)

It did feel a little strange to be in Stratford and not to be 'digging' for Bensonian treasure in the SBT archives,  However, February half term looms on the horizon: another stay in our lovely hired cottage and three whole days of archive work ahead.  I'm already making lists...