The streets of London are full of stories, tales and legends about their past. I used to live in London and I still spend a lot of time in this marvellous city. For quite a few years, I have spent many hours walking (and running and cycling along) its streets, envisaging how historic events unfurled, and I am always adding to my knowledge.
London in Shakespearean times was a fascinating, noisy and bustling place. This page, and information that accompanies a History walk, offers a brief window on a few aspects, particularly relating to London's theatres at the time. For a more in-depth understanding of the era, books such as Shakespeare's London by Stephen Porter and Shakespearean London Theatres by Peter Sillitoe are recommended.
Much of the information on this page about London’s theatres during the time of Shakespeare and his contemporaries is drawn from a project called ShaLT– the Shakespearian London Theatres project – undertaken by The Arts & Humanities Research Council in association with DeMontford University and the V&A. This project undertook to find out about the 15 or so early theatres built for Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights and actors. There is some excellent information on their website. You can access and download their walking map along with excellent summaries of the theatres here.
“Come to London, to plaguy London, a place full of danger and vanity and vice.”
So wrote John Donne in 1607 (Donne would become Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in 1621).
Whilst he was evidently not too impressed with the state of London at the time, most visitors to London in Shakespeare’s time were quite impressed with the city. Perhaps the problems and tensions of the city were not evident to people visiting for a few days.
Between the 1570s and 1642, at which time parliament shut down the theatres, it is thought that some 3,000 plays were written and staged in London. 600 of them survive today.
London was growing fast during Shakespeare’s time in the city, much of it fuelled by immigration from other parts of the British Isles and continental Europe. Some of its inhabitants such as merchants were very rich; others were very poor.
Queen Elizabeth I was concerned about the rapid growth of the city and the detrimental impact it may have on rural communities, linked to the growing demand an urban population has on food, water and fuel supplies.
In the late 1500s and early 1600s the metropolis consisted broadly of three parts: the City of London was the commercial centre, Westminster was its political heart and the area of noble mansions, and Southwark was the area where Londoner’s enjoyed themselves with theatre and other entertainment.
London was amongst a group of cities in Europe that by 1600 had grown to a population of at least 100,000. At the time, London was smaller than Constantinople, Naples and Paris but larger than Lisbon, Seville and Venice.
Its streets were narrow, its buildings in close proximity to each other. These streets were often dark, especially in winter. It was quite common for houses to be four storeys in height, with the ground floor being a work premises such as a shop and / or a workroom, the first floor often being a parlour and a kitchen, and bedrooms on the third floor with storage on the top floor. Many buildings had courtyards in looking, often flanked by stables for horses.
In 1598 the historian John Stow published an intimate record of the city, the Survey of London, in which he documents its buildings, courts, alleys, streets and layout changes in great detail.
The first use of a space to stage plays in London that people pay for to watch is accredited by some to have commenced in 1567, when the Red Lion theatre opened in Mile End, east London. The Red Lion was not a playhouse, rather it was a basic stage. Playhouses would come soon after – first with open-air theatres including James Burbage’s 1576 Theatre (in Shoreditch, north of today’s Liverpool Street station) and just over 20 years’ later those on the Southbank – the Rose, Globe and Swan. Afterwards there would be a shift towards indoor playhouses, starting the “theatre land” of west London that we see today.
The commercialisation of theatres is generally agreed to have started around 1575, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. The groundwork for this event was laid in the two previous decades of the 1550s and 1560s, when the state got involved and encouraged the patronage of theatre companies.
Theatres in London in the 1560s and 1570s were used by touring companies that travelled to theatres around the country. Within a decade of this period, we started to see what we now know of as great plays to emerge and theatre companies starting to perform from bases.
Theatres were located on the outskirts of the city, because of a bureaucratic conflict going on, with differences of opinion about whether theatres should exist or not – partly linked to the crowd they attracted, partly due to some of the content being performed.
The Mayor and the Corporation of London banned plays from their jurisdiction in 1572 partly as a measure against the plague, and in 1575 they formally expelled all players from the city. This prompted the construction of playhouses outside the jurisdiction of London, in the liberties of Halliwell (in Shoreditch) and later the Clink, and at Newington near the established entertainment district of St. George's Fields.
The Theatre set the standards for theatre design. Special effects were a popular innovation, allowing for smoke, the firing of a real canon, fireworks and 'flying' entrances. Another important feature was a cobbled yard, as opposed to the bare earth floor suited to animals for the blood sports that venues had been mainly used for. This allowed the 'pit' area to house playgoers even on wet days. Many new theatres were venues for plays and also supported gambling and blood sports. Plays attracted hundreds of people which also attracted thieves, harlots and pickpockets. Disturbances and fights were fairly common.
Nonetheless, the early London theatres were a great success. On the back of the success of The Theatre, playhouses continued to be built and in 1583 Queen Elizabeth I decided that The Queen’s Men would be formed, giving it a monopoly of performances at court for five years. The Mayor of London was obliged to allow the Queen’s Men to perform at the four inns in the city, which were part of a new collection of playhouses.
In Shakespeare's time, the City of London consisted of narrow streets with housing, trades people and markets.
This fly-through video shows what London in the 1600s looked like.
A good 10-minute overview of the theatre scene is available on this 10-minute video produced by the ShaLT team.
Watch this entertaining clip from the TV comedy Upstart Crow on "designing the new playhouse", and this clip about one of Shakespeare's famous plays.
You can watch a good video about the old cathedral here.
A good summary about the old cathedral is available on Wikipedia.
St Paul's was one of two main sites for boy-players in the 1570s and 1580s, and for a second time in the 1590s and early 1600s.
A playhouse was located in St Paul’s cathedral precinct, abutting the old church. There were two separate periods in which boy choristers performed plays here. First, between 1575 to 1590 boy actors performed under their master for elite audiences, often acting out plays written by resident playwright John Lyly, they were in competition with a boys company located at nearby Blackfriars theatre. Then, from 1599 a second boy company performed, again in competition with the Blackfriars boy company.
The Theatre in Shoreditch was created by Richard Burbage in 1576 as a polygonal design which could house thousands of people in its open-air yard, with three tiers of galleries.
Its location was beyond the northern boundary of the City of London and as a result outside the jurisdiction of City authorities who were often opposed to the theatre. This area was notorious for licentious behaviour, brothels and gaming houses.
A year later another theatre called The Curtain was built nearby, making the area one of London's first theatrical and entertainment districts.
Its design was a model for many amphitheatres that followed and it is where Shakespeare’s early plays were performed. It was aimed at all members of society – you could pay a penny and watch as a ‘groundling’ or pay more to be in the upper galleries. Beer and snacks were sold.
Four inns in the city were permitted to hold plays for a certain period of time. Two of these inns had open-air outdoor yards, two were indoors. There was the Bel Savage off Ludgate Hill, used by the Queen’s Men. The Bull in Bishopsgate Street hosted plays as early as 1575, and there was the Bell and the Cross Keys close by.
The Bel Savage Inn (at 50 Ludgate Hill between Limeburner Lane and Old Bailey)
The Bull Inn (Bishopsgate Street, near Barclays Bank (110))
The Bell (Bell Inn Yard, Gracechurch Street)
The Cross Keys (Bell Inn Yard, Gracechurch Street)
Two Blackfriars indoor playhouses were built by Burbage, both housed within the old Blackfriars monastery site in and near Apothecaries Hall. The first, smaller theatre, was conceived as an indoors playhouse but did not really take off. It staged plays by boy actors from 1576 until 1584.
From 1599 a second Blackfriars theatre staged plays by boy actors, and between 1609 to 1642 it was the only indoor theatre of the King's Men or the 'Shakespeare company.' In the Jacobean and Caroline periods it became the most important indoor theatre in London.
Address: Playhouse Yard / Blackfriars Lane
First Blackfriars, 1576-84
Second Blackfriars, 1596-1642
Whitefriars was an indoor theatre for the boy-players. Located at the old monastery site, this theatre was clearly designed to rival the Blackfriars and staged plays from 1609 to 1613.
Whitefriars (Bouverie Street / Temple Lane, off Fleet Street).
The four Inns of Court all staged plays. The first recorded performance of Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night occurred in one of them, the Middle Temple hall, on 2 February 1602. Shakespeare himself was probably present.
Construction of Middle Temple Hall began in 1562 and was completed in the early 1570s. Its hammerbeam roof is well known.
Queen Elizabeth I visited the hall in 1578, unannounced, to inspect the new building and to listen to a barristers debate. This is the earliest known visit of a reigning monarch to an Inn of Court. One of the tables at the end of the hall is thought to have been made from the timbers of the Golden Hinde, the ship used by Sir Francis Drake to circumnavigate the world.
Inner Temple and Middle Temple (Inner Temple Hall, off Middle Temple Lane)
London Bridge has a fascinating history to it.
There have been several bridges (in slightly different locations) stretching back hundreds of years. The medieval Old London Bridge had many houses and shops along its span, including Nonsuch House. The current bridge is owned and maintained by Bridge House Estates, an independent charity of medieval origin overseen by the City of London Corporation.
There are some interesting comparisons between Old London Bridge and some of the bridges over the Seine in Paris, which also had houses on them.
In the area now known as Bankside, which is where Shakespeare lived and worked in the late 1500s and early 1600s after his theatre company moved south of the river to the Globe, all sorts of things used to go on! Dozens of inns and brothels used to stretch upon this riverside path.
Cardinal Wharf has its own little pocket of history. At the back of the small alley called Cardinal Cap Alley, there used to be an inn at the back in Shakespeare’s times which housed a brothel called The Cardinal’s Hat”.
The houses on the row date back to the 1400’s and they are named after Cardinal Wolsey, Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII. Wolsey tried to get Henry divorced from Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. But Wolsey failed to win the support of the Pope and Henry banished him and set up the Church of England.
Ironically, Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife, first arrived here from Spain.
The Rose
The Rose was the first of the Bankside theatres south of the River Thames. It was located on the north side of Maiden Lane (now Park Street), west of Southwark Bridge.
The Rose was erected in 1587 by entrepreneur Philip Henslowe as the first purpose-built playhouse on Bankside, in London’s borough of Southwark. Its circular shape was elongated in 1592, and the open-air stage covered with a roof. Playwrights like Marlowe, Shakespeare, Jonson and Dekker wrote for The Rose until it closed in 1605 and was demolished soon afterwards.
Henslowe recorded his expenses as an impresario in what is now known as his Diary, which survives to give us a wealth of information on theatrical production at the time. An archive of his papers is held at Dulwich College, which was founded by Henslowe’s son-in-law Edward Alleyn, one of the greatest actors of the 16th century and the leader of the Admiral’s Men company of players, who were resident at The Rose.
Two of the earliest plays by William Shakespeare – Titus Andronicus and Henry VI, Part 1 – are recorded to have been performed at the Rose, as well as plays by other playwrights including Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene, George Peele, Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson and Thomas Heywood.
Archaeological remains were discovered in 1989 during a development of the site for a new office, and they were partially excavated. After a public campaign to protect the remains, they are now listed by Historic England as a Scheduled Monument at Risk.
This insightful short video reconstructs The Rose.
An excellently detailed resource exists about The Rose, including a 3D rendition of what it would have looked like when it was built.
The Swan
The Swan theatre in Southwark was built in 1595 on top of a previously standing structure,. It was the fifth of large public playhouses of London, after James Burbage's The Theatre (1576) and Curtain (1577), the Newington Butts Theatre (between 1575 and 1577) and Philip Henslowe's Rose (1587), which was the first on the south bank.
The Swan was located at the northeast corner of the Paris Garden estate on Bankside nearest to London Bridge that Francis Langley had purchased in May 1589. The structure originally belonged to the Monastery of Bermondsey. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, it became royal property and passed through several hands before it was sold to Langley for £850. The Mayor of London opposed Langley's permit to open a theatre on the site, but the Mayor's objections held no sway as the property formerly belonged to the crown and the Mayor had no control over it.
By 1597 the Swan was housing the Pembroke's Men acting company who later approached Henslowe to rejoin the Admiral's Men at The Rose.
In 1597 they staged an inflammatory play called The Isle of Dogs, by Thomas Nashe and Ben Jonson, the content of which gave offence because of its "satirical" nature on some people high in authority. Jonson was imprisoned as a result, along with two others. Langley was already in trouble with the Privy Council on other matters, and he may have exacerbated his problems by allowing his company to stage the play even after a royal order that all playing stop and that theatres be demolished.
The order of the Privy Council called for all London Theatres to be "plucked down", and it might have arisen because of Langley and his 'seditious, lewd play'.
The Lord Chamberlain's Men went on tour and the Admiral's Men did not perform again at The Rose until the inhibition was lifted at the end of October 1597. Johnson was released from jail in October that year and all theatres except the Swan were granted new licences to perform. The Swan continued to operate without a licence until 19 February 1598, when the two licensed theatre companies called attention to its unlicensed activities.
The Globe
The modern version of the Globe Theatre opened in 1997, situated on Bankside as the third theatre bearing this name since the first opened nearby in 1599. The current theatre is not in the same place as the original Globe of Shakespeare's time.
The first Globe Theatre which opened in Southwark in 1599 was built by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the company that William Shakespeare wrote for, acted in and part-owned. It was built partly using timbers from The Theatre which was in Shoreditch. After the death of James Burbage in 1597, the lease of The Theatre expired and the Puritan land owner of the site, Giles Allen, refused to renew the lease. A clause was found in the lease which allowed the sons of James Burbage (see below) to dismantle the building and use any materials that could be recovered - an early example of construction materials reuse!
It is believed that the first play Shakespeare created to be acted out at the first Globe was Julius Caesar in spring 1599. Later that year Shakespeare wrote As You Like It and started Hamlet. From 1599 to 1613 some of Shakespeare's best-known plays were performed here - including King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Twelfth Night and Antony and Cleopatra. Other playwrights produced pieces for the Globe at the time as well, it was not a monopoly for Shakespeare - including Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton and John Fletcher.
In 1613, a mis-fired prop canon during Shakespeare’s Henry VIII play (co-written with John Fletcher) set its thatch roof on fire. It apparently took just two hours for the theatre to burn down (thankfully no one was killed). The Lord Chamberlain’s Men company rebuilt the Globe within a year – this time giving it a tiled roof (learning from the last experience). The second Globe operated until it was closed down by parliamentary decree in 1642, which was the time of Oliver Cromwell and when theatres and rowdiness were looked down upon during puritan times.
Shakespeare’s company did not exclusively perform at the Globe. In 1609 they started performing in the second indoors Blackfriars playhouse, which is where Shakespeare's final plays were performed, including The Tempest.
A general overview of The Globe is available here.
The Ferryman's seat is an ancient stone seat dating back to the 14th century. At night, when Old London Bridge closed its gates, the only way to cross the river was by rowing boat.
Bear Gardens is named after the bear (and bull) baiting that used to take place in the area. It was a cruel sport. There used to be bear pits down this alley.
The Rose playhouse was opened by entrepreneur Philip Henslowe in 1587, holding plays until 1604 and being dismantled soon after.
From 1594 to 1600 the Rose was home to the Admiral’s Men, who later moved to Henslowe’s and actor Edward Alleyn’s new theatre, the Fortune, near the modern day Barbican area.
The first Globe Theatre opened in Southwark in 1599. It was built by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the company that William Shakespeare wrote for and part-owned, partly using timbers from The Theatre which was in Shoreditch.
The Anchor Inn is one of the oldest inns in London. Records of it date back to the 1500s.
River pirates would often meet here to sell their stolen wares to the landlord.
The infamous Press Gangs of the 17th century would visit here, to capture men to serve in the Royal Navy.
Winchester Palace was a 12th-century bishop's palace which was the London residence of the Bishops of Winchester located in the parish of Southwark , near St Saviour's Church (which later became Southwark Cathedral).
The demolished palace remains still exist and are designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
This site has been a religious one since at least the 11th century.
Between 1106 and 1538 this cathedral was the church of an Augustinian priory, Southwark Priory. Along with other religious houses in England, the priory was dissolved by King Henry VIII, being surrendered to the Crown in 1540.
A large stained glass window is dedicated to William Shakespeare, with scenes from his plays, at the base of which is a statue of the playwright reclining, holding a quill. The playwrights John Fletcher and Philip Massinger are buried here.
The market is claimed to have existed since 1014. A market originally linked to London Bridge was first mentioned in 1276. The City of London received a royal charter from Edward VI in 1550 to control markets in Southwark, which was confirmed by Charles II in 1671. It caused such traffic congestion that, in 1754, it was abolished by an act of Parliament, before a second act was passed in the same year permitting local parishioners to set up another market on a new site.
The Fortune
In 1600, with the new Globe threatening the livelihood of the smaller Rose, Philip Henslowe and his leading actor Edward Alleyn (also now his son-in-law and business partner) decided to leave Southwark and build a new outdoor playhouse north of the river close to Whitecross Street, a mediaeval market street near today’s Barbican arts centre. Although square while the Globe was polygonal, it was otherwise modelled on the Globe and built by the same man, Peter Street.
The Fortune was built in 1600 at Fortune Street, Clerkenwell. This outdoors playhouse staged plays by Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, Thomas Kyd and Thomas Dekker. When it burned down in 1621 it was immediately replaced by a second theatre of the same name, which staged plays until the outbreak of the civil wars in 1642.
The building contract for the Fortune survives.
A general overview about The Fortune (including the contract for its construction)
The people behind. the construction of the theatres were pivotal to how things evolved. Two key figures were Philip Henslowe and James Burbage.
Philip Henslowe (c. 1550 – 1616) was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. He is known for his diary, which provides a valuable source of information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London.
By the 1570s, Henslowe had moved to London and was a member of the Dyers' Company. He is recorded working as being an assistant to Henry Woodward, reputed to be the bailiff for Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu. Henslowe married Woodward's widow, Agnes, and from 1577 he lived in Southwark, opposite the Clink prison.
Henslowe developed a range of business interests including dyeing, starch-making, pawn-broking, money lending and trading in goats’ skins. Between 1576 and 1586, Henslowe was involved in the trade in timber from Ashdown Forest, and his main activity was as a landlord in Southwark.
In 1584, Henslowe purchased a property known as The Little Rose, in Southwark, which contained rose gardens and, almost certainly, a brothel. In 1587, partnering with John Cholmley he built The Rose, the first to be built on Bankside.
From 1591, Henslowe partnered with the Admiral's Men after that company had split with The Theatre's James Burbage (1531 - 1597) over the share of income receipts. Edward Alleyn, the Admiral's' lead actor, married Henslowe's stepdaughter Joan in 1592, and they would work in partnership.
In 1597 and most of 1598, the two sons of James Burbage, Cuthbert and Richard, were forced to rent the Curtain for their performances because of failing to renegotiate the lease to The Theatre.
In 1598 their company (the Lord Chamberlain's Men) moved to the Southbank and, using timbers from The Theatre, built the Globe just 50 yards from The Rose, with its financing shared between seven people – Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, Shakespeare and four others. From 1599 to 1642 almost all of Shakespeare’s plays would be performed here. Richard Burbage acted in many of Shakespeare’s productions.
Henslowe responded to this move by Burbage by moving The Admiral's Men, who were staging Marlowe’s plays, to the north-western corner of the city into a new venue, the Fortune.
We hope these pieces inspire you to discover more about London's history...
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