Shakespeare’s long-lost London home is finally found
Popular Science...
By the end of his career, William Shakespeare was a bona fide celebrity boasting multiple homes across England. Historical documents indicate the legendary playwright spent the majority of his later years in the town of his youth, Stratford-upon-Avon, but he also owned property in the Blackfriars precinct. Named after the Dominican friary dating back to the 13th century, the region is located in east London not far from Millennium Bridge—and about 100 miles southeast of the playwright’s hometown. There’s even a plaque located at 5 St. Andrew’s Hill commemorating the latter real estate transaction: On 10th March 1613 William Shakespeare purchased lodgings in the Blackfriars Gatehouse located near this site.
“Near this site” is a pivotal detail, however. Archival evidence shows Shakespeare’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall Nash Barnard, sold the property in 1665, but the home burned down along with around 15 percent of the city’s housing during the Great Fire of London the following year. Over the ensuing centuries, historians couldn’t be sure of the property’s exact location.
After 360 years, the mystery appears finally solved. According to Lucy Munro, a Shakespeare expert at King’s College London, three newly located documents pinpoint the exact spot of the writer’s London residence.
“I was doing research as part of a wider project and couldn’t believe it when I realized what I was looking at—the floorplan of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars house,” Munro said in a statement.
Housed in the London Archives, the floorplan is visible in a rendering of the Blackfriars precinct drawn in 1668, just two years after the Great Fire. A portion of the property spanning the gate itself isn’t on the map because it lacked a foundation, but the other section clearly measured 45 feet wide from east to west and 13 to 15 feet wide on either end. Although there aren’t any internal layouts, historians believe that the structure was large enough to be split into two homes. This suggests that Shakespeare may have occasionally stayed at the location while also using it as a source of additional income.
“It has sometimes been thought that he bought his Blackfriars property merely as an investment, but we don’t know that this is true, or that he never used it for himself,” explained Munro. “After all, he could have bought an investment property anywhere in London, but this house was close to his workplace at the Blackfriars theatre.”
Shakespeare’s own career also supports the theory. In 1613, he co-authored Two Noble Kinsmen with fellow London playwright John Fletcher, and visited the city again the next year.
“We…know that Shakespeare was visiting London in November 1614—is it not likely that he stayed in his own house?” Munro said.
Over the past 100 years, businesses located in properties built on the site of Shakespeare’s home have included a printing company, an architecture firm, and a carpet wholesaler. But most appropriately of all? The National Book Association.
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