“The general public and many academics have consistently underestimated the importance of Stratford to Shakespeare.” Edmondson believes that, after Shakespeare bought the house in 1597, all his thinking time was spent there and that the late plays, including The Tempest, were at least planned in his library and probably written there. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust describes New Place as “the jewel in the crown of the 400th anniversary celebrations” but, in truth, it is more of a gaping hole where the gem should be. Shakespeare’s house was demolished 300 years ago and the house that replaced it, probably incorporating some of the original fabric, was flattened in 1759 by an irascible clergyman, Francis Gastrell, in a row over taxes. He had already cut down Shakespeare’s mulberry tree, under which the writer is said to have sat and worked, because he was irritated by all the tourists peering into his garden. The gap in the Stratford streetscape has never been filled but a five-year archaeology project has peeled back the years and the news that Shakespeare’s kitchen had been found in the partly surviving cellars went round the world. The whole site is being redisplayed for the anniversary, with the foundations marked and the garden restored. “Without Stratford,” Edmondson said, “there would have been no Shakespeare.”