We are raising funds for Stratford-upon-Avon’s Shakespeare Hospice, which is funded almost entirely by charitable donations.  We are encouraging walkers, should they so wish,  to raise funds by obtaining sponsorship from friends, relations and work colleagues and we shall also pass all profits on the sale of our publications to the same cause.

 

Sponsorship forms are available via e-mail. Please follow the link below marking the subject box ‘Sponsorship Form’

Further information can be obtained from;

 

Peter Titchmarsh,

The Shakespeare’s Way Association,

St Mary’s Barn, Pillerton Priors, Warwick. CV35 0PG

Tel:   01789 740852       e-mail:   titchmar@aol.com

This long-distance path runs between Shakespeare’s Birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon and Shakespeare’s Globe, London  -  a total distance of 146 miles. Using existing footpaths, bridleways and a few minor roads, this path has been planned to follow, as closely as possible, a route that Shakespeare may have taken on some of his journeys back and forth between his home at Stratford-upon-Avon and the city where he spent most of his productive years.

This path links some of Britain’s best-loved tourist destinations – London, the Chilterns, Oxford, Blenheim Palace, the Cotswolds and Stratford-upon-Avon. Passing within a mile or two of Heathrow Airport it provides an unspoilt walking route for those incoming passengers who wish either to walk eastwards into London or, more importantly, north-westwards into the very heart of  the English countryside.

Setting out from Stratford our path first follows up the valley of the little River Stour before crossing the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. It then goes through magnificent Blenheim Park and Woodstock before passing through the city of Oxford.  From here it heads over quiet country through which the River Thame flows, before crossing the beautifully wooded Chiltern Hills and dropping down into the Thames Valley at Marlow.  It now goes beside the Thames for a short while before going through wooded heathland to Iver on the western fringes of London

Shakespeare would have had few problems on his approach to the capital, but to avoid the present urban sprawl we use a green corridor running parallel to his probable route in the shape of the towpath beside the Grand Union Canal. Yes – this was established more than 200 hundred years after Shakespeare’s time, but it now offers a surprisingly quiet approach to London and we feel he would approve.  Beyond the canal, from Brentford onwards we use the Thames towpath, some of which must have been familiar to Shakespeare. And so to arrive at Shakespeare’s Globe, lying at what was the very heart of Elizabethan theatreland.