Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is moving its archive and collection to Avenue Farm Industrial Estate - but not everyone thinks it’s a good idea

In 1964, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, the trust opened its new headquarters and study facility, the Shakespeare Centre on Henley Street. An extension housing educational facilities and visitor centre for the Birthplace was added in 1981.

But times change, and the reading room and the vast collection housed in strongrooms and elsewhere in Henley Street is moving to pastures new – Avenue Farm industrial estate to be precise.

“While it was fit for purpose in 1981, we've outgrown it – the collection is too big for Henley Street now,” says Paul Taylor, head of museum and curatorial services, when the Herald paid a visit last week. “There are challenges around the space and overall condition of the Shakespeare Centre.”

Paul adds: “It’s also not very obvious – people don’t know it’s here. Even though the new buildings a little bit further away it will be much more visible.”

The 1960s building is notorious for being a bit of a warren, another major concern, says Rachael North, director of museum and public programmes, who is also on hand to chat through the move with the Herald.

“Anyone with a mobility impairment struggles to get access currently. Avenue Farm gives us the opportunity to engage, meaningfully, with a wider audience and share our world-class collection. Both the accessibility of the building and the opportunities to develop new research facilities so that we can truly create something that suits the needs of current audiences as well as the audiences of the future.”

There have been some raised eyebrows about the move to an ‘industrial estate’ (perhaps said in a Hyacinth Bucket tone), but the team are adamant it is for the best and offers a brave new future.

“The location is still Stratford, and is very much accessible for our visitors,” says Rachel. “It’s five for ten minutes on the bus and walkable. Spaces like this at the scale we need just don't come up very often. We've been looking for quite some time and when this came on the market and we were on the phone almost straightaway.”

The move – which is expected to start later this year – sounds like a logistical nightmare, nonetheless the team appear to be relishing the thought.

“It will be the entirety of the collection,” says Paul. “That’s around three kilometres of archive shelving, 10,000 museum objects, about 40,000 books and pamphlets and things like that. So it's a massive scale, basically everything that’s stored in this building and our out-stores will be going into one single location that we purpose designed and will be fit for purpose. It is a really exciting opportunity that really gives us a chance to open that access in a different way.”

While the collection includes some amazing things – not least three editions of the First Folio -Paul, who came to the trust 12 years ago, also values some of the more everyday treasures the collection holds.

Asked about his favourite items, Paul says: “The obvious answer is to say like something like some of the Shakespeare documents, because that's the reason that the trust exists. But I think for me what's really interesting is that breadth of local archive. When you get underneath the surface and you can see we've got records going back to the 1100s.

“Things like the parish register, which is famous having Shakespeare’s signature in, also records thousands of other people in the same book and is a real snapshot of Stratford history, and that's the exciting stuff.

“We've come right up to date with the with the council and local celebrations, that’s astonishing and it’s a privilege to look after.”

Rachel joined SBT two weeks before the Covid lockdown, so hard times, but she says it’s an experience that has made the organisation resilient.

“What I see now, having gone through that journey and looking at a project like this one, is we are just such a confident organisation. What projects like this speak to are a really exciting future vision that is about audiences and local communities, but is still about Shakespeare and rooted in Stratford – it’s about sharing that story with the world. And the move is incredibly important to that future vision.”

‘IS THERE REALLY A NEED FOR THE COLLECTION AND ARCHIVE TO MOVE?’

THERE has been some negative reaction to the news that the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust collection is moving from its current Henley Street location to Avenue Farm. Madeleine Cox, who was reader services coordinator at the trust from 2005 to 2022, was one of those who feels strongly that the collection should remain together next to the birthplace. SBT responded to points about the move below.

Surely the move from the town centre to an industrial estate will diminish public perception of this world-class collection?

The purpose of the move is to create better spaces which will also allow us to increase capacity and place the exploration of our collections at the heart of our audience engagement and research.

The move to the new facility, a few minutes walk from the Shakespeare Centre, will allow the trust to radically improve access. Through a purposefully designed Reading Room, working with experts in accessibility throughout the design and build.

The current Reading Room is only open limited hours. Why is this? And will this remain true of the new location?

There is no need to book an appointment currently, as walk-up visitors are welcomed during opening hours. We also offer an online reservation system so that visitors travelling to Stratford can secure a space.

Following the move to Avenue Farm, we have committed to increasing our capacity beyond what it was before the pandemic and creating a more inclusive and welcoming visitor experience.

It seems surprising that repairs and expansion cannot be facilitated in the current location, rather than a wholesale removal which will be both complicated and incredibly expensive.

The current building is operating substantially outside of its original lifecycle and, as such, has extensive remedial issues which need to be resolved, including with the roof and ventilation systems. This work is complex and the extent of it cannot be examined until the collections have been fully relocated.

If better accessibility is desired, could not other trust buildings – Edinburgh Woollen Mill and other Henley Street buildings be adapted?

A series of prospective properties were included as part of the SBT’s wide-reaching feasibility study, including properties on Henley Street. Avenue Farm was selected as it was the only venue that fully met the needs of the project, including having the space to house the extensive collections the Trust maintains, whilst being within walking distance of Shakespeare’s Birthplace and Henley Street.

The former Edinburgh Woollen Mill will be the new home of the new Learning and Community Hub, and the collections will continue to play a part in telling the Shakespeare story in this property and the Shakespeare family homes across Stratford.

There is careful juxtaposition of this announcement with a statement that the move will allow the centre to be repaired. Is it a temporary measure?

The entrance to Shakespeare’s Birthplace for all our visitors will continue to be through the ground floor of the Shakespeare Centre. By moving the collections to a new facility we can focus on conservation works whilst engaging in the detailed examination of options for the future of this important building.

The trust has openly declared its optimistic desire to create a new ‘Shakespeare Centre’ in Windsor Street and beyond – is this move part of that narrative?

We are working with our partners, including Stratford District Council, to explore opportunities for the Gateway site, which include the potential for a new, world-leading museum for Shakespeare and Stratford within the site. Were this to proceed in future, this exciting project would look to create a new experience for the town and the many thousands of visitors from across the world who visit, alongside the existing Shakespeare family homes and the Shakespeare Centre.

Will the Shakespeare Centre, opened with such promise just 60 years ago, ever be repaired and used again?

We are conscious of the iconic place the 1964 Shakespeare Centre building has within Henley Street and the town more generally.

However, as we’ve discussed the building is suffering from a series of substantial infrastructure issues and there is also a broader need to ensure that Henley Street offers a truly world-class visitor experience.

In the 1960s the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust made a series of bold decisions which created a new home of Shakespeare for their time. We now face a similar moment in the 21st century and we’ll be looking at all of the challenges and opportunities within a comprehensive master-planning process.

What funds are available to SBT to finance this?

We have agreed on a lease on the property at Avenue Farm to enable us to continue providing access to our collections whilst a master planning process takes place to resolve the wider, longer-term issues for Henley Street.

The project is not being funded by the sale of any properties.