By Judith Mora
London, Apr 16 (EFE).- The discovery of a previously unknown map has enabled a British academic to pinpoint the exact location of William Shakespeare’s only known London residence.
The new finding has shed new light on the final years of the playwright’s life and challenging assumptions about his retirement from the capital.
Although scholars had long suspected that Shakespeare owned a house in the Blackfriars area, where a commemorative plaque now stands, three documents uncovered in London and national archives confirm its precise location “without a doubt,” early modern literature expert Lucy Munro told EFE on Thursday.
Munro, a professor at King’s College London, discovered a 1668 plan that, for the first time, shows the L-shaped layout and dimensions of the property.
The house stood between the former Great Gate of the Dominican monastery of Blackfriars and what is now St Andrew’s Hill, near St Paul’s Cathedral.
Additional property records reconstruct the building’s chain of ownership and directly reference Shakespeare.
The documents include details of the house’s sale in 1665 by his granddaughter, Elizabeth Barnard, and its subsequent resale in 1667 by the new owner, Edward Bagley.
A London base late in life
Munro noted that Barnard sold the property for 300 pounds, a considerable sum at the time, shortly before the Great Fire of London in 1666 devastated much of the city. Bagley later resold the house for 35 pounds a year after the disaster.
“Elizabeth Barnard was lucky to sell it when she did,” Munro said.
The newly discovered map also clarifies the building’s scale and surroundings.
According to Munro, the east-west section of the house measured around 59 square meters and provides new insight into the neighborhood’s urban layout.
“Taken together, it gives us a better understanding of what Shakespeare bought toward the end of his life, and the surroundings of his property,” she said.
The findings also challenge the widely held belief that Shakespeare retired to Stratford-upon-Avon around 1613.
“It is often assumed that Shakespeare withdrew from London at that time, but his investment in Blackfriars and the plays he wrote then suggest he remained professionally and financially active in the city,” Munro added.
She believes Shakespeare likely purchased the property as a residence rather than simply an investment, noting that it stood just a five-minute walk from the Blackfriars Theatre, where his company had performed since 1608.
Shakespeare’s theatre connections
Shakespeare held financial interests in both the indoor Blackfriars Theatre and the nearby Globe Theatre, the open-air venue built in 1599 using timber from the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch, where he began his career.
The Globe burned down in 1613 during a performance of Henry VIII.
A modern reconstruction now stands on the south bank of the River Thames, not far from Shakespeare’s former residence, while the original site lies buried beneath later buildings.
Meanwhile, the excavated remains of the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch are expected to form part of a future museum space.
According to Munro, Shakespeare arrived in London in the late 1580s, with the first confirmed record placing him in Lord Chamberlain’s Men in 1594.
Although he was still linked to London in 1614, it remains unclear whether he lived there continuously.
Munro aims to explore these questions further in two forthcoming books, one examining Shakespeare’s theatres in greater depth, and another focusing on his collaboration with playwright John Fletcher, with whom he co-wrote his final works. EFE
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