Frodsham vicar banned from Stratford-upon-Avon

By Sarah Griffiths on Jan 19, 09 08:43 AM in 1500-1799

Francis Gastrell was vicar of Frodsham between 1740 and 1772 and officially lived at the vicarage in Frodsham during this time. However, in 1756 he also bought the New Place in Stratford which was the house where Shakespeare spent his retirement. Following the playwright's death in 1715, his daughter Susanna Hall and grand-daughter Elizabeth lived there until it was passed to the Clopton family. The Cloptons opened the house to the public and it attracted many visitors eager to see where the great man had lived.

Gastrell managed to gain notoriety during his spells of residence in Stratford which eventually caused him to be expelled from the town on a permanent basis. One account of the actions leading up to this ban was that he found the intrusive nature of the public attention particularly difficult at New Place as it had continued apace after the change of ownership. In 1759 he lost patience with visitors constantly staring at the house and the garden and vented his anger on the mulberry tree believed to have been planted by Shakespeare. He chopped it down to the ground and sold it for firewood. Another view suggested that he thought he could reduce the value of the property by the removal of the tree, and thus the amount of tax he had to pay. Whatever the reasons for his action, the townspeople showed their dismay by breaking his windows.

Gastrell continued by making a clear stand against the levy of local taxes and refused to pay. When it became apparent that he couldn't defer it any longer, Gastrell decided to dismantle New Place completely. The people of Stratford were horrified at this act and drove him from the town. A byelaw was passed so that neither Gastrell, nor any of his descendants, could ever live in the town again. He returned to his duties in Frodsham and a mulberry tree, believed to have been from a cutting of the original, was planted in Stratford and still stands in the former gardens of New Place.