Stratford-upon-Avon, the small old Elizabethan market town on the River Avon, enjoys worldwide fame as the birthplace of William Shakespeare. The town center is extensively 16th/17th C and is surrounded by areas of greenery and charming sections of riverbank, with many attractive rows of half-timbered houses, including Shakespeare's house, where
visitors can still follow in the footsteps of the most famous British playwright. The town is internationally famous as a research center and stage for Shakespeare's works.
This culturally-blessed setting has repeatedly been used as a backdrop in literature. One of the most recent examples is the detective story "Inspector Jury kisses the Muse", published at the beginning of the 1990s and written by the American authoress Martha Grimes, in which the popular Scotland Yard detective investigates a case of murder in Stratford-upon-Avon.
The market town of Stratford-upon-Avon, lying on a ford across the Avon, has traditionally been a trading place for the region's agricultural products. The cloth trade led in the Middle Ages to modest affluence for its citizens. Today the town lives primarily by the marketing of its most famous son William Shakespeare (1564-1616) to the tourist industry.
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