Original Layout

The White Swan is over five hundred years old and is undoubtedly the oldest building in Stratford which is today used as an inn. It has not, however, had a continuous use as such. The building dates from the early 15th century and, in its original form, would have been typical of the larger houses which once lined the streets of medieval Stratford. The original layout of the rooms would have been very different from today, but the survival of many splendid interior features allow us to deduce what the building originally looked like.
The centrepiece of most medieval houses was the great hall, open from ground to roof timbers. Here would have been the hearth (smoke originally escaped through a hole in the roof) and a table where the family and servants met for meals. On each side of this hall would be two storeyed wings, one side (usually the left as you faced the building) containing the families private apartments with a ladder stair, and the other the service rooms. The upper floors of the wings were jetted (i.e. they projected over the street) and the main entrance of the street was usually at the lower end of the hall, adjoining the service wing. So that the comings and goings through this door did not disturb those using the hall, it was screened off to form a passageway, known as the ‘screens passage’.

Alterations and Developments

This traditional building pattern is still well reflected in the White Swan today, even though there have been many alterations down the centuries. The open hall originally occupied the whole of the central area of the building, in the 16th century, however, though exposed during extensive alterations in 1928, the medieval are still encased, and in the Oak Room, the great beam which supported the jetted upper floor is still in place, complete with six diamond shaped mortice holes out to take the wooden mullions (or uprights) of the front window. The other rectangular mortices were for the upright timbers of the wall.

In medieval times anyone standing where the present bay-window would have been several feet outside the original building. In the other wing, a similar beam exists, and you can see also how this wing was originally two rooms deep. The door which led out of the front room into the hall is still there, even though the partition is not.

We have mentioned that in a typical medieval house one would more usually expected the family apartments to have been on the left of the hall and the service quarters on the right. The White Swan, however, may not have fitted the plan exactly. The Oak Room (in the right wing) was never divided, and is also slightly wider than the other. Moreover, it was here in the early 16th century, that the famous mural was painted. This suggests it may always have been a principal living room.

On the other hand the chamber above the left wing has very fine mouldings and almost certainly then, as now, was the master bedroom. It is also possible from the evidence of surviving timbers, that the room below was some sort of shop, rather than part of the domestic wing.

Owners and Occupiers 1620-c.1790

Very little is known about the owners and occupiers of this building before 1718, although it is fairly clear that the White Swan, together with buildings on the corner of Windsor Street, was owned in 1620 by Frances Woodward. She was the widowed daughter of Robert Perrott, a wealthy puritan brewer of Shakespeare’s day, who died in 1589, and from his will, we know that he also owned property in the Rother market, almost certainly that which his daughter later owned. Proof that it was an inn has, however, not been forthcoming.

From at least 1692, the building was owned and lived in by William Hicks. After his death in 1701, his widow Jane, and her son, also William, continued to live there, by 1718 however, he had settled in Birmingham as a mercer, and in that year the house was sold to John Smith, a Stratford Baker. Thus began a long association with the bakery trade, although as we shall see, this was later not the buildings only use.

John Smith later died in 1725 and the business passed to his daughter Margaret, who, ten years later, married another baker, Robert Bruce. He died in 1765, and his widow in 1771, and the following year their son, another Robert, sold the house and business to William Evetts, for £260. He remained there for a few years before letting the premises to another baker, John Hamp, who was the tenant when the house was sold in 1779 to Robert Manton, yet another of the same trade. The Mantons, however, already had a thriving business across the road in Rother Street, and for a while continued to leave the house in the hands of his tenants.

From a Bakery to an Inn c.1790-1896

The first of these was Thomas Sparkes, who broke with tradition, and established an inn in the early 1790's. He died in April 1803, but his widow Mary, took over the licence and remained there until march 1807. Robert Manton, the owner, then decided to let his bakery business in his other Rother street property, and take over the running of the New Inn. It is fairly clear that he also revived the bakery on the premises, and for a few years ran both businesses together. In 1812 the licence was not renewed for the New Inn and the premises once more became a simple bakery.

Robert Manton died in November 1814, and the business passed to his son, William. He continued to run it until his own death in 1837, although by this date there is evidence that the rambling building was larger than he required for his own family, and that it had consequently been divided up into at least two, and perhaps three, smaller tenements. Williams son Robert died five years later, leaving another Robert his son and heir, and it was he who in 1848 sublet the centre tenement (the old hall of the medieval house) to William Baker, who reopened an inn there named the Kings head. Manton the Kings Head. Manton himself became main host in 1852 but clearly, like his great-grandfather before him, ran the inn in conjunction with the bakery.

The whole property was sold in 1857 to William Compton, who allowed hi mother Sarah Harper, (she had remarried after her first husbands death) to take over the licence. She had run an inn at the top of middle row in Bridge Street, known as the White Swan since the 1830's but this had been demolished, with the last of middle row in 1857.

The next landlord was Charles Timms, who held the licence from 1860 to 1873 and it was during his tenancy that we read of the first recorded brush with the law, for in 1864 he was fined £4 0s 0d for allowing parties to play cards for money on the premises. We must remember however that the White Swan still only occupied the central part of the present building, the two wings being separate houses, one the residence of the landlord. Timms was succeeded 1873 by James Compton, the nephew of the owner William Compton, he inherited the property on his uncles death in 1880, and subsequently retired.

A building plan survives showing how at the beginning of his tenancy, the front wall of the inn(still just the centre portion) was brought forward with the ‘right hand wing’. James Compton also ran foul of the law, in 1874 he was charged with permitting rows and fights on the premises, much to his neighbours annoyance. On inheriting his uncles property James Compton took to farming and installed Thomas as landlord until 1887, then James returned for a further nine years as landlord until 1896, when he let the premises to the Alcester Brewery Company.

Hard Times and Resurrection 1896-present day

It is clear that by this time that his interest in the business is waning, an attempt to sell the property by auction failed in 1894 when the bidding reached only £975, but due to further neglect, the premises fetched only £850 in 1902, when they were eventually sold to the Hook Norton Brewery Company.

Extensive alterations were then carried out, including the demolition of most buildings beyond the back of the original medieval house. It was an extension at the rear that the stairs had been placed, probably when the old open hall was given a floor in the 16th century. With the demolition of this extension the stairs were repositioned on their present site near the front entrance. As yet, though the inn now extended into the present Oak Room, the wing on the left was still occupied separately as a shop. Trust Houses brought the premises in 1918, and in 1927 undertook further alterations, which have left the main fabric more or less as it is today. During the Second World War it was used by the American Red Cross to care for injured American officers as a rehabilitation centre.

Trust Houses amalgamated with Forte in the early 1970s to create Trusthouse Forte, and the White Swan became one of over 200 properties, and operated as one of the inns division. In the 1970s and 80s the White Swan was one of four THF properties in Stratford, the others being the Shakespeare, Alveston Manor and Swan’s Nest Hotels. Forte created the White Hart brand in the late 1980s for traditional inns and town centre hotels, and sold the 65 hotels in this group to Regal Hotels, a small group of 20 hotels, in 1997. Half of the 41 rooms were upgraded by Regal during the period of ownership, before several changes of hands culminated in new ownership by Pioneer Pub Co. Ltd., under whose guidance The White Swan continues as a charming atmospheric hotel into the 21 st Century.