//
Photo: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Thatched wattle & daub cottage, home of Anne Hathaway until she married Shakespeare. Restored with many family heirlooms on display (including their famous "second-best bed"), and surrounded with scenic gardens. Nearby car park £2. Stratford city bus tour calls here.
Anne Hathaway's Cottage is a twelve-roomed former farmhouse where Anne Hathaway, the wife of William Shakespeare, lived as a child. It is situated in Shottery about 1 mile (1.6 km) west of Stratford-upon-Avon town centre. Shottery is now a district of Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England; however, in Shakespearean times, Shottery was a hamlet. The house, set within pleasant gardens, is a tourist attraction. It has been owned by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust since 1892.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Home of Shakespeare's daughter Susanna and her husband Dr John Hall. In Jacobean style, with exhibition on medical & surgical practice of those times: no wonder so many patients died young.
Hoaky re-imagining of the "lost years of William Shakespeare" - he was a wizard, apparently - plus lots and lots of merchandising (but thankfully no Harry Potter).
Probably the location of Shakespeare's birth, and definitely the home of his early years. His father was a glove-maker and town magistrate, with a spell as mayor, so this is a fairly prosperous home of the 16th century. Restored with period decor and many authentic items, and small garden.
Substantial mansion built in 1483 and bought by Shakespeare in 1602, but it owes its present appearance (ie totally invisible) to The Rev Francis Gastrell: he so loathed Shakespeare and pesky tourists that in 1759 he demolished it. A good start, but he was run out of town before he could set about the other properties. So the site is nowadays a charming garden in Elizabethan style. The adjoining building, Nash's House, was the home of Shakespeare's grand-daughter Elizabeth, and her first husband Thomas Nash.
The MAD museum is a collection of machines incorporating gears, chains, pulleys and whirligig paraphernalia. The exhibits fall into three areas: kinetic art, automata, and steampunk. Lots of rolling balls, clanking and rattling. There are exhibits indoors and in the garden with wind and water powered features and sculptures.
The church is charming in its own right, but the main attraction is the burial place of Shakespeare and his immediate family within the chancel. So you can only view it when the church is open, and as a working church, services and other functions take precedence over tourism.