Roman The Stratford area was settled during the
Roman period as the area was crossed by a Roman road: archaeological remains of a small Roman town have been found, about northeast of Stratford town centre at
Tiddington, now part of Stratford, which was occupied from the 1st to the 5th century AD. The remains of two further probable Roman settlements have been found within a few miles of modern-day Stratford.
Medieval Oftfor,
bishop of Worcester from 691 to 693, preached to the
Hwicca tribe who inhabited south Warwickshire (then
Mercia), and it has been argued that it was during this mission that a
monastery was founded at Stratford. The earliest reference to the monastery comes from a charter in which
Egwin (third bishop of Worcester) acquired a religious house at
Aet-Stratford, which may have been on the site of the
Church of the Holy Trinity. The rights of the bishops of Worcester to Stratford were confirmed by
Offa in 781. The monastery was likely destroyed by
Viking invaders in 1015. The land remained in the ownership of the bishops of Worcester until the 16th century. The area around Holy Trinity Church is still known as Old Town as it was the original area of settlement around the monastery. The focus of the settlement at Stratford was later moved north, closer to the river crossing, which was better positioned for trade. He laid out a new town in 1196 around north of the original settlement, based on a
grid system to expand Stratford and allow people to rent property in order to trade within the town. Coutances granted his new tenants the right to rent property and transmit it at death; this was called
burgage tenure. Each development plot or "burgage" consisted of around . A charter was granted to Stratford by King
Richard I in 1196 which allowed a weekly market to be held in the town, giving it its status as a
market town. These two charters, which formed the foundations of Stratford's transformation from a village to a town, make the town of Stratford over 800 years old: the town celebrated its 800th anniversary in 1996. and
Almshouses on Church Street John of Coutances' plans to develop Stratford into a town meant it became a place of work for tradesmen and merchants. Many of the town's earliest and most important buildings are along what is known as
Stratford's Historic Spine, which was once the main route from the town centre to the parish church. The route of the Historic Spine begins at
Shakespeare's Birthplace in Henley Street. It continues through Henley Street to the top end of Bridge Street and into the High Street where many
Elizabethan buildings are found, including
Harvard House. The route carries on through Chapel Street past
Nash's House and
New Place. Opposite New Place was
The Falcon Hotel (now Hotel Indigo), at the corner of Scholars Lane. It is a timber-framed house with nearly 100-ft frontage to the street and dating perhaps from the end of the 15th century.
Tudor period The
medieval structures of local governance underwent significant changes during the
Tudor period: The
Guild of the Holy Cross was abolished in 1547 under King
Edward VI's
suppression of religious guilds, and the inhabitants of Stratford petitioned the Crown for a charter of incorporation as a
borough, which they received in 1553. This allowed the formation a new Town Council which inherited the property and responsibilities of the abolished guild. The Charter of Incorporation refounded Stratford's school as the
King Edward VI School Glove making was an important industry, which was at its zenith in the 15th and 16th centuries. As was
malting, the processing of
grain to turn it into
malt.
John Shakespeare, originally a farmer, had moved to Stratford in 1551, from the nearby village of
Snitterfield and became a successful glover (glove maker) and businessman, and an official on the Town Council. He met and married
Mary Arden a member of the local
gentry in around 1557. Together they had eight children, including Stratford's most famous son
William Shakespeare in 1564, believed to be at the house now known as
Shakespeare's Birthplace.
17th and 18th centuries Stratford was the centre of considerable activity and some fighting during the
English Civil War. Being located at the junction of several main roads, it was strategically important for both the
Royalist and
Parliamentarian armies. Due to its close proximity to the Parliamentarian stronghold of
Warwick, Stratford remained under Parliamentarian control for the majority of the conflict, although it was only directly occupied by troops for sporadic intervals. In February 1643, Stratford was occupied by Royalist forces under
Colonel Wagstaffe. In 1769, the actor
David Garrick staged a major
Shakespeare Jubilee over three days which saw the construction of a large
rotunda and the influx of many visitors. This contributed to the growing phenomenon of
Bardolatry which made Stratford a tourist destination. The
River Avon was made navigable through Stratford in 1639, by the construction of
locks and
weirs, providing Stratford with a navigable link to the
River Severn to the south-west and to near
Warwick to the north-east, this allowed, in the words of
Daniel Defoe "a very great Trade for Sugar, Oil, Wine, Tobacco, Iron, Lead and in a word, all heavy goods which are carried by water almost as far as Warwick; and in return the corn, and especially the cheese, is brought back from
Gloucestershire and
Warwickshire to
Bristol". By the early 19th century, Stratford was a flourishing
inland port, and an important centre of trade, with many canal and river
wharves along what is now Bancroft Gardens. A surviving remnant of this is the
Tramway Bridge over the River Avon, a brick arch bridge which now carries pedestrians. The first steam railway to reach Stratford was a branch of the
Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway from to the south, which opened in July 1859. This was followed by the
Stratford on Avon Railway's branch from
Hatton from the north, which opened in October 1860. Both branches initially had separate termini, but they soon agreed to join the two branches and open the current railway station, which was opened in July 1861. Both branches later came under the control of the
Great Western Railway. The connection of Stratford to the growing national railway network, helped enable the development of the modern
tourism industry. of 1879 Stratford did not become a major centre of industry during the
Industrial Revolution, but some industries did grow up locally:
Edward Fordham Flower opened a large canal side
brewery in Stratford in 1831. The Flower & Sons Brewery, on Clopton Road survived until 1967, when the company was taken over by
Whitbread. Several
lime kilns were opened locally, and the manufacture of
tarpaulin and
oilcloth flourished. The advent of rail transport in the middle of the century caused a major decline in river and canal transport, and the River Avon navigation through Stratford was abandoned in 1875.
Victorian Stratford's growth as a tourist destination was further enhanced by
Edward Fordham Flower and his son
Charles Edward Flower, owners of a local brewery business, and important figures in local affairs: Through their campaigning and fundraising efforts, the
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was opened on the banks of the Avon in 1879. In 1974, the ancient
borough of Stratford was abolished and merged into the much larger
Stratford-on-Avon District, and the area of the borough became a
successor parish with a
town council. That council inherited two long-standing charities, the Guild and College estates, that own property in the town; these assets were transferred to the Stratford Town Trust charity which () awards grants totalling over £2million each year to the local community. ==Governance==