After William Shakespeare's death in 1616, New Place survived, in the same form, for a further eighty-five years before being destroyed to make way for a new, more fashionable, eighteenth-century house. This chapter discusses his motivations for building the property, the architecture and layout of the building, and the archaeological evidence that was left behind. Sir John Clopton was a direct descendant of Hugh Clopton, so, in 1677, the ownership of New Place reverted into the hands of a descendant of the original builder. Because of a change in economic fortunes, Stratford-upon-Avon was undergoing a period of significant redevelopment. The house was constructed on a three-bay plan, a feature typical of the period and one of a number of defining features of high-status houses. A considerable number of houses survive that have comparable architectural qualities to Sir John Clopton's New Place.

This chapter argues that Shakespearian biography in relation to New Place needs thorough revision and a greater level of nuance in order to increase understanding of Shakespeare's relationship to Stratford-upon-Avon. Nicholas Rowe was the first to present Stratford-upon-Avon and New Place as Shakespeare's retirement home. The major Shakespeare biographies into the twenty-first century bear witness to the still-popular trope of Shakespeare's retirement. Anne Shakespeare, and her lucrative, working-day world as manager of New Place, are an important part of Shakespearian biography. Shakespeare's brother Gilbert provided crucial assistance with Shakespeare's business affairs, and represented his older brother in his purchase of 107 acres of arable land from the Combes in May 1602. William's brother Edmund, sixteen years his junior, most certainly had ties with London. Shakespeare wrote at different speeds throughout his career, and some plays seem more polished than others.

Stratford-upon-Avon helped to form William Shakespeare. From 1564 to 1596, Shakespeare was identified primarily with one house: his parents' home, a substantial family dwelling on Henley Street. The house on Henley Street was Shakespeare's portal on to the town and into the wider world of the imagination. Commerce and traffic to the town increased significantly from 1492 once Hugh Clopton had built the bridge across the Avon. For Shakespeare, the place of education was thus closely related to the costumed activities of civic authority and theatrical productions. John Shakespeare removed his eldest son from the school to learn the family trade of glove-making. He married Anne Hathaway of Shottery in November 1582. In the same year that Shakespeare married, Alexander Aspinall was appointed as the schoolmaster and continued teaching until his death. From Shakespeare's childhood until into his thirties, Stratford-upon-Avon continued to host theatrical performances.

This chapter presents an overview of the site since the removal of the 1702 house. It focuses upon the archaeological projects that have taken place during the last 150 years namely that of Halliwell-Phillipps and Dig for Shakespeare. Francis Gastrell removed Sir John Clopton's New Place in its entirety down to its foundations, with much of the rubble being used to fill the cellar and level the site. In 1836 New Place and John Nash's House were purchased by David Rice, who retained ownership for twenty-six years before he sold New Place to James Halliwell-Phillipps. Halliwell-Phillipps was an antiquary, a literary scholar and a principal friend of the William Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. His aims for the excavations were similar to those of Dig for Shakespeare: to identify the remains of New Place and recover artefacts that may have belonged to Shakespeare himself.

The complex history of Stratford-upon-Avon can be chronicled through the fortunate survival of its early records. The site of New Place is situated in the lower Avon Valley close to a natural fording point along the River Avon. At the beginning of the Neolithic period there was a rapid growth in trade, technology and commerce. Several of the monuments are known from crop marks in the area around Stratford-upon-Avon, and find-spots of Neolithic-worked flint and pottery sherds are known. The Bronze Age is not represented on the site by either physical or artefactual evidence. The Iron Age was a period of immense social, technological and agricultural change. During the Early to Middle Iron Age, settlements consisted of individual farmsteads scattered across the Avon Valley rather than planned, nucleated settlements. The site of New Place is located on the corner of Chapel Street and Chapel Lane.