William Shakespeare Hoghton Tower Myth

According to the Hoghton Tower website, "distinguished visitors include William Shakespeare, J.M.W. Turner and Charles Dickens."

Accordingly Hoghton Tower have tried to cash in on their supposed William Shakespeare connection,  including hosting his plays every year. The only problem is that it's a myth.

Tower Myth: William Shakespeare

No evidence substantiates their claim, any stories linking Shakespeare with Hoghton Tower are pure hearsay.

A couple of twentieth-century scholars have suggested that Shakespeare MAY have been employed as a schoolmaster by Alexander Hoghton of Lancashire, a Catholic landowner who named a certain "William Shakeshafte" in his will.

But let us be charitable to Sir Bernard de Hoghton for a moment, which is more than can be said he is to ducks and pheasants, and say William Shakespeare did visit Hoghton Tower. What influence did the Tower have on Shakespeare? Well so impressed was Shakespeare that he makes absolutely NO reference to it or any of the Hoghton family in any of his plays.

Needless to say all reputable research shows their is no connection at all between the 'great Bard' and Hoghton Tower. A fact borne out by 'Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom' by Charles Beauclerk published in 2010.