Tree Garden
at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage

The sculptures in Shakespeare’s Tree Garden at Anne Hathaway’s Cottage were funded by American Friends and the Newington-Cropsey Foundation as a result of an initiative begun in 1999 by the Trust. This joint project commissioned six art students from the United States and the United Kingdom to create Shakespeare-inspired sculptures specific to this site. The students were selected by the Foundation’s Academy of Art Director, Greg Wyatt and Terry New at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The students received scholarships and direction by their respective instructors and the pieces were cast in bronze in New York and London foundries, all the while receiving instruction in the production, casting and patina of their sculptures. American Friends intends to complete the program with ten sculptures for the garden, to date seven are permanently placed.

The plaque at the entrance to the Tree Garden notes “it was created out of a neglected field by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, with the support and cooperation of the Tree Council and with the help of various persons and organizations. The garden was officially opened in May 1988. About forty of the trees mentioned in Shakespeare’s writings are featured in the garden, together with a few other trees, shrubs and roses”.

The sculptures and the artists are:

  • Hamlet: What Wilt Thou Do For Her? by Michele Firpo-Cappiello
  • Brutus by Isaac Graham
  • History Play by Jane Lawrence
  • King Lear by Eve Pomerantz
  • Falstaff: What is Honour? by Niels Helvig Thorsen
  • Titania by Gemma Smith
Hippolyta: ‘Tis strange my Theseus, that these lovers speak of. Theseus: More strange than true: I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream