Mary Arden's Farm Mary Arden's Farm Mary Arden's Farm, also known as Mary Arden's House, is the farmhouse of Mary Shakespeare (née Arden), the mother of Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare. Because of confusion about the actual house inhabited by Mary in the mid-sixteenth century, the term may refer either of two houses. Both are grade I listed and located in the village of Wilmcote, about three miles from Stratford-upon-Avon. A house wrongly identified as Mary Arden's (it actually belonged to a neighbour) was bought by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in 1930 and refurnished in the Tudor style.This timber framed house has been maintained
John Arden John Arden John Arden (26 October 1930 – 28 March 2012) was an English playwright who at his death was lauded as "one of the most significant British playwrights of the late 1950s and early 60s". Born in Barnsley, son of the manager of a glass factory, he was educated at Sedbergh School in Cumbria, King's College, Cambridge and the Edinburgh College of Art, where he studied architecture. He first gained critical attention for the radio play "The Life of Man" in 1956 shortly after finishing his studies. Arden was initially associated with the English Stage Company at the Royal