Shakespeare's London Home Discovered
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The playwright spent the majority of his later years in the town of his youth, Stratford-upon-Avon, but he also owned a property in London.
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.
Now, after 360 years, the exact location of William Shakespeare's only London property has been pinpointed to a street in the Blackfriars district, after a previously unknown floorplan came to light. Shakespeare expert Prof Lucy Munro from King's College London identified the location and size of the property he bought in 1613. “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.”
The property was thought to have been part of "the Great Gate" over the entrance to the Blackfriars precinct, a major 13th Century Dominican friary, and covered what are now the eastern end of Ireland Yard, the bottom of Burgon Street and parts of the late 19th Century buildings at 5 Burgon Street and 5 St Andrew's Hill. The exact site of Shakespeare's London pad is now the site of 5 St. Andrew’s Hill.
It had been thought that Shakespeare retired from his theatre career not long after he bought the house and returned to Stratford-upon-Avon. However, academics believe the discovery could indicate that the playwright spent more time in London than previously believed.