Scientists have identified the location of William Shakespeare’s house
Scientists from King’s College London have finally solved one of the long-standing mysteries of Shakespeare’s biography. For the first time, they have pinpointed the location of the only house William Shakespeare ever purchased in London.
Although historians have long known that the playwright purchased a property in Blackfriars for £140 in March 1613, the exact coordinates of the building remained unknown for over four hundred years.
Now, thanks to the painstaking work of Professor Lucy Munro, this mystery has been solved. The New York Times reports.
According to the research, Shakespeare’s house was located in the area now occupied by the eastern part of Ireland Yard, the lower part of Burgon Street, and parts of the modern buildings at 5 Burgon Street and 5 St. Andrew’s Hill.
How Shakespeare’s house was found
The researcher analyzed three little-known 17th-century documents. The key piece of evidence was a detailed plan of a section of Blackfriars. This plan was drawn up in 1668, just two years after the Great Fire of London, and was kept in the London Archives.
The plan clearly shows an L-shaped building, partially constructed on the site of a former medieval Dominican monastery. The portion of the building above the gatehouse lacked a foundation, so it was not included on the post-fire plan.
Nearby to Shakespeare’s house stood the famous Sign of the Cock Tavern and a converted monastery building. The building proved to be quite spacious: by 1645, it had been divided into two separate houses.
The house in Blackfriars was just a five-minute walk from the Blackfriars Playhouse, of which Shakespeare was a co-owner.
This suggests that in the last years of his life, the great playwright spent significantly more time in London than is commonly believed. It is possible that he worked on his later plays here.
The press service of King’s College London emphasized that this discovery provides new insights into the daily life and London period of the biography of the greatest English writer.
VIDEO. The Life of William Shakespeare – Great Personalities of History.
We previously wrote about Einstein’s mysterious IQ: is it fact or myth? Scientists are investigating whether the smartest person in history really scored between 160 and 205 points.
