A FASCINATING new exhibition at Chepstow Museum has revived age-old controversy about the authorship of Shakespeare's plays – and a theory that his head and manuscripts were hidden in the River Wye.
Some 90 years ago American Dr Orville Owen began a quest at Chepstow for a cache of manuscripts that would prove Sir Francis Bacon to be the true author.
He had arrived at this conclusion by reading coded directions in writing by Bacon and other Elizabethan authors and in The Tempest.
The lead-covered boxes of books, manuscripts and a box containing "a gruesome object" rumoured to be Shakespeare's head were said to have been buried in a rift in the bed of the river.
Dr Owen's excavations, first beneath Chepstow Castle and the in the bed of the Wye itself, attracted huge interest and the progress of his search made headlines in the national newspapers of the times.
There was great excitement when a large object was discovered but things cooled off when it was found to be the base of a Roman bridge.
The river excavations were eventually abandoned – because of the Wye tides only a few hours' work a day was possible – and Dr Owen turned his attention to other sites in Chepstow before returning to America empty-handed.
But plans of the excavations, photographs, notes and many of the newspaper cuttings were left behind, and these can be seen in the museum's Shakespeare in Chepstow exhibition which runs to September 12.
Also on show will be many of the fine costumes used in the hit movie Shakespeare in Love, including dresses worn by Elizabeth (Dame Judi Dench) and Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow) and the outfits of Wessex (Colin Firth) and Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes).