THE HISTORY OF STRATFORD PLAY HOUSE

Our company Toucan Play Productions began their time at Stratford Play House in July, 2018 - We were kindly welcomed by the other businesses with whom we now share a building. Many may not realise  it but there are quite a few – Herbs and Acupuncture for example, then Charles Saville Estate Agents, DG Services, Chris Wheeler, Greenwood Planning, Much Ado About Insurance, Stratford Projects, Fred Theatre, Cloud Book Keeping, The Orchestra of the Swan and the Gods on Mount Olympus themselves – the Stratford Town Trust. So it is indeed an interesting place and it has an appropriately interesting history. The story starts when Rother Street was established during the laying out of Stratford as a planned town in 1196. Rother is an Anglo Saxon word for cow and, appropriately enough, it was home to a cattle market.

Then, a mere 634 years later, two fine plaster stuccoed villa-type houses were built on 14 and 15 Rother Street in 1830. In June 1841, JM Sanders Esq is cited as living in the buildings – known as Rother House, Rother Street. In 1850, he sold them to a diocesan priest for £1,250 and the priest fitted them out as a catholic chapel, a library and a little school in 1852. Five years later, the priest became ill and sold them.