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About Hall's Croft Hall’s Croft goes back a little ways, it has some documentary evidence sparsely. It’s been built onto and other things that make it hard to source, but we do know John and Susanna Shakespeare moved there around 1613, living there only 3 years, because in 1616 when William Shakespeare died, Susanna inherited New Place, the largest house in Stratford, so pretty quickly their family moved there. Documentary evidence does not conclusively say she lived in Hall’s Croft, but it does suggest she lived in “old town” and this house makes the most sense for her, so we are happy to conclude that. She would have had a child there, and would have been William Shakespeare’s granddaughter, Elizabeth, and if William wanted to be a granddad it would have been Hall’s Croft. Family Saying Grace Before a Meal, Attributed to Antoon Claeissens (circa 1536–1613) | Public Domain | Source | This painting is hanging in the actual Hall's Croft, and is digitally included as one of the optional paintings users can select for the walls in the digital 3D Model. | More on the Painting from Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Why make a model of Hall's Croft? The reason is Susanna. What kicked this off was that she did lots of work with Shakespeare Birthplace Trust to preserve and present these houses and spaces related to Shakespeare’s life, but Hall’s croft was always one of the ones that was an outlier and a bit of a mystery. Not the same time as New Place or Birthplace, but it is right in the middle of town. Susanna herself was a figure that was under represented, pops up, pops out from behind her husband and father, creating a project to look directly at Susanna, and the best way to get to know Susanna was to explore where she lived. 1850 Illustration of Hall's Croft, then known as Cambridge House School. Unknown artist. | Public Domain| Source Creation Process Find the best people to explain it to her and make it happen. Her ideal in her head was to create a space people could explore and that the documents and objects would be virtually there for people to find. Worked with a company called Arcade, expanded to now be called One Up. They made extraordinary and augmented reality items, worked on things that are for learning and playfulness, they are a playful approach to learning. They explained the options for how to do it—the 3D photography, a specialist equipment, inside Hall’s Croft, taking photos of the room, and they are completely 3 dimensional, and taking all around themselves, they go away and create separately a virtual model of that space. The images stick to the inside—having a diorama, take a box or a shoebox, sticking things inside to make it look like a room, the technology creates this in a virtual space, seeing the actual images in their correct positions and not flat like paper. The objects as well, there’s a...
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