A centuries-old mystery involving William Shakespeare and the only London property he was ever known to have purchased before his death in 1616 has finally been solved.
The famed playwright was famously born in Stratford-upon-Avon, around 100 miles outside of the city where he would later become known as one of the country’s greatest writers, penning plays such as “Romeo and Juliet,” “Hamlet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and “The Merchant of Venice,” many of which continue to be studied and performed to this day.
Shakespeare would later become one of the most recognizable names in English literature and theatre; however, much of his personal life remains a mystery, one that has plagued academics for centuries.
One key question in that riddle was what Shakespeare had planned to do with his life after he took a step back from playwriting and acting around 1613, when he is also said to have purchased a property in London—one that had never before been identified. Until now.
According to Lucy Munro, a professor of Shakespeare and early modern literature at King’s College London, the question of “wherefore art” the playwright’s home is located has been answered in the form of property records that she unearthed from the London Archives and the National Archives while researching a separate project.
Those records, Munro has now revealed, detail not only the exact location of Shakespeare’s London abode—which was located at an address in Blackfriars, just across the Thames River from the iconic Globe Theatre, where the playwright performed many of his works—but also the layout and design of the dwelling.
“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 professor revealed in a statement.
Munro went on to add that many experts in her field had “assumed there wasn’t much more evidence to gather” about Shakespeare’s dwelling, noting that she believes this is why the documents had never before been dug out.
“It had been assumed that there wasn’t much more evidence to gather about it, so research on it has laid dormant for a while,” she said. “These findings really help us tell the complete story of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars house and thanks to this new discovery we now know exactly where it stood.”
Munro’s discovery also ends centuries of speculation that suggested Shakespeare’s home had been located near a structure called “the Great Gate,” which was part of a 13th-century Dominican friary.
For years, a blue plaque had been proudly displayed on a wall at 5 St. Andrew’s Hill, a street in Blackfriars, proclaiming: “On 10th March 1613 William Shakespeare purchased lodgings in the Blackfriars gatehouse located near this site.”
According to Munro, however, Shakespeare’s home was not “near” where the plaque is now mounted—but in the exact spot where it has sat for so many years, at 5 St. Andrew’s Hill.
As part of her findings, the academic uncovered a floor plan of Shakespeare’s dwelling that was drawn up in 1668. And while it does not include an exact layout of every room, it makes clear that the home was large enough that it was split into two separate properties around 30 years after the writer purchased it.
The research also sheds new light on the final years of Shakespeare’s life, throwing serious doubt on the common assumption that he had been planning to quit London and retire full-time to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he shared a home with his wife, Anne Hathaway, and their three children.
“This discovery throws into question the narrative that Shakespeare simply retired to Stratford and spent no more time in the city,” Munro noted.
“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.
“After all, he could have bought an investment property anywhere in London, but this house was close to his workplace at the Blackfriars theatre.”
Munro went on to add that Shakespeare was known to have co-authored at least one play in late 1613—”Two Noble Kinsmen”—explaining that this work, combined with his purchase of a “substantial” London abode, suggests he was planning to spend ample time in the city and continue producing plays.
“We know that Shakespeare co-authored ‘Two Noble Kinsmen’ with John Fletcher later in 1613, and this new evidence that the Blackfriars house was quite substantial makes it not inconceivable that some of it may have been written in this very property,” she said.
“We also know that Shakespeare was visiting London in November 1614—is it not likely that he stayed in his own house?”
