Under the terms of Shakespeare's will, the ownership of the whole property (the inn and Joan Hart's cottage) passed to his elder daughter, Susanna; and then on her death in 1649, to her only child, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth died in 1670, bequeathing it to Thomas Hart, the descendant of Shakespeare's sister, Joan, whose family had continued as tenants of the cottage after her death in 1646.

[5] When it was again put up for sale in 1846 on the death of Court's widow,[3] the American showman P. T. Barnum proposed to buy the home and ship it "brick-by-brick" to the US.

The driving force behind its construction and opening in 1964 was Dr Levi Fox, OBE, Director of the Trust from 1945 to 1989, with a view to properly housing its library, documents and collections which attract scholars from all over the world.

[2] The Trust begun holding an artist in resident from 2015, the first being held by Roger Hartley who runs the Bureau of Silly Ideas.