Anne Hathaway’s Cottage was originally a farmhouse. It was built in 1463 of cruck construction, when the building would have comprised of just three rooms. The kitchen and parlour still remain from the original medieval construction. The first Hathaway to live in the cottage was Anne’s grandfather John Hathaway, who was a tenant sheep farmer. Anne, later Shakespeare’s wife, was born in the cottage in 1556. When the site was a farm it was known as ‘Hewlands’ and the Hathaway family were very successful sheep farmers. The garden would have been a farmyard with some livestock and likely a herb garden. After the death of Anne’s father in 1581, Anne’s brother Bartholomew inherited the tenancy of the 90-acre farm and later bought it freehold. He went on to make various improvements to the cottage including an extension. The first floor was inserted and the chimneys added at the same time. This work was completed before the death of Bartholomew in 1624. By the late 1800s, the family’s fortunes were on the wane; some property including land and houses were mortgaged and eventually sold. In 1838, the cottage itself was sold and the remaining Hathaway family continued to live in the cottage as tenants. One of the last Hathaways to live in the cottage was Mary Baker. When the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust purchased the cottage in 1892 from the then landlord, Mary and her family were paid the large wage of £75 per year. Their duties were to share family stories and to care for the cottage, both of which we continue to do today. Her son William Baker still occupied part of the cottage until he left in 1911.