A Shakespeare fan will walk 120 miles through Stratford and Amersham following the iconic playwright's footsteps through historic English countryside.
Nick Gammage from Amersham is getting ready to walk from Tewkesbury in the West Country, via William Shakespeare’s Avon before passing by Amersham on his way to The Shakespeare Globe Theatre in London.
The 64-year-old former PR professional decided to embark on the journey on May 17 to mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio published in 1623.
With the impressive walk Mr Gammage hopes to help keep Amersham Museum afloat after its finances were “severely hit” when it had to shut during Covid, he explained.
The Chesham Bois resident of 20 years said: “I will be recreating the journey William Shakespeare made - probably on foot - when around 1585 and aged just 21, he left his wife and three young children at Stratford for a new life in the London playhouses.
“The walk combines my interests in literature, discovering old roads, long distance walking - two years ago I walked 250 miles on old drover roads from the West Coast of Wales to my home on an old drove road - and in supporting Amersham's great little museum.”
His fascination with literature and poetry was sparked by his earlier career as a newspaper reporter and through his friendship with the late poet Ted Hughes, for whom he edited a tribute publication for after his sudden death from cancer on October 28 1998.
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The dad-of-three retired from his role as Communication’s Director at the London Stock Exchange to spend more time with his wife Helen and rambling after falling ill with prostate cancer, which he fully recovered from.
He said he felt “as fit as I did when I was 16 and played rugby for England Schoolboys.”
“No one knows exactly why or when Shakespeare first left Stratford - or his exact route. But using old charts and other evidence from the time I have pieced together his most likely route,” he said.
“In Tudor times the journey from Stratford to London was gruelling and dangerous. Roads were in an appalling state, old packhorse and drover tracks churned up by hooves and often under water after torrential rain. Highwaymen and wayside robbers lurked in the dense woodland which lined much of the route.
“Shakespeare may have travelled with Stratford carrier William Greenaway who made weekly journeys with his horse drawn cart taking goods and letters between Stratford and London. But with cart wheels easily becoming stuck in the boggy ground it was often as easy to walk - a journey of around five days.”
Before the walk, the Shakespeare enthusiast will hold a sold out talk at the Amersham Museum on May 11 to reveal the town’s hidden connection with the writer.
His fundraiser can be found here.
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