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Newsletter No 87 November 2018

Notes and News ............................................ p.2

Data Protection and YOU .............................. p.2

Miscellanea .................................................. p.2

A newly discovered panorama ...................... p.3

Our backlist.................................................. p.3

Historic Transport map: special offer ............ p.3

‘Earth has nothing to shew more fair.’

A Panoramic View of London from the Tower

of St Margaret’s Church, Westminster,

by Francis Marshall ...................................... p.4

Changing London.......................................... p.6

The topography of London’s early playhouses,

by Julian Boucher ........................................ p.7

A seventeenth century map of Whitechapel and

Wapping, by Geoffrey Tyack ........................ p.10

London’s Almshouses, a living tradition,

by David Crawford ...................................... p.12

London Diaries of the Second World War,

by Jerry White ............................................ p.13

Reviews ...................................................... p.15

Newsletter

Number 87

November 2018

Contents

Prévost Panorama © Sotheby’s

page 2

Notes and News

The well attended Annual General Meeting of the

Society was held on Monday 25 June in the

generous space of the Beveridge Hall, Senate

House, University of London. Tea was provided

beforehand, and members were able to collect a

bumper pack of this year’s publications: the two

panoramas by Thomas Girtin and Lawrence Wright,

and a copy of the Historic Towns Trust’s Map of

Tudor London. Minutes of the meeting will be

published in the May 2019 Newsletter. After the

business Vanessa Harding spoke about the process

of creating the Tudor map and how the new edition

takes account of recent archaeological and

historical discoveries, as well as having the

advantage of a georectified scale so that it matches

Ordnance Survey maps, and can form part of the

Institute of Historical Research’s ‘Layers of London’

project (for this see layersofLondon.org). There was

also a report from Ros Branston, curator at the

British Film Institute, on the digitisation of films in

the national collection which the LTS had helped to

fund), including clips from some fascinating

London market scenes of the 1920s. Our principal

speaker, Rosemary Ashton, took us back to

Bloomsbury in the nineteenth century, a period

when over 300 foundations and institutions were

founded in the area, among them the ‘radical

infidel college’ (now UCL) on a ‘swampy rubbish

dump’, which was established in 1825 as a non-

residential place of study for London’s middle

classes. Other places of learning and nurture

proliferated, ranging from the ‘Ladies’ College’ in

Bedford Square (1849) to the Working Men’s

College, Birkbeck College, the Mary Ward centre,

and

the

‘Kindergarten’

Tavistock

Place

established by German exiles after 1853. Among

the numerous specialist hospitals, Great Ormond

Street dates from 1852, while University College

Hospital was the first teaching hospital associated

with an English university. We were reminded too

of the many writers with Bloomsbury connections

(well before the ‘Bloomsbury group’). An immensely

rich and stimulating mass of information to give

one food for thought about Victorian ideals and

achievements as one walks through the area.

Following the meeting a celebratory meal was

held to thank Graham Maney for his work over

many years as the painstaking and meticulous

publisher of the Society’s publications.

Data Protection and YOU:

a note from our council member

Andrew Thorp

Following the notice in May’s Newsletter I have

received responses from roughly half of our

members confirming that they wish to have their

name and contact details included in the list of

members in the London Topographical Record. The

next volume is planned for publication in 2020.

Many thanks to all members who have responded.

If you have not yet replied but wish to have your

contact details to be included please email me

at lontopsoc.andrew@gmail.com or write to me at

45 Stanton Road, London SW20 8RW. If you do not

wish your postal address to be included your email

address can be included instead. Please let me

know.

The more members’ addresses that are included,

obviously the more useful the list will be for Society

members, other Record readers and researchers.

When we now look at the early Record volumes we

see names of people who had an appreciable

influence on the governance and history of London,

people like Lawrence Gomme of the LCC, the

prolific author E. Beresford-Chancellor and

bibliophile Henry B. Wheatley. It would be a shame

to deny future researchers such a source of

interest, no matter how insignificant we presently

feel our individual contribution to be.

Miscellanea

Members may be interested to learn that the value of

the Sun insurance policies as historical records,

discussed in our last issue in an article by Isobel

Watson, has been demonstrated by an article by our

member Derek Morris, which is to be published in

the Autumn 2018 edition of Local Population Studies,

101: The Thames as a Barrier in the eighteenth

century. The article draws attention to the powerful

function in the LMA search facility that enables one

to identify links between two separate places, e.g.

Wapping and Southwark, London and Dover, and

challenges many assumptions about trade and

marriage in eighteenth-century London. Analysis of

marriage registers, apprentice records, wills and

insurance policies demonstrates that, in the

eighteenth century, the Thames, downstream from

the Tower of London, was a major barrier to the

development of strong business and marriage links

between the residents on the north bank in Stepney,

and those on the south bank in Surrey and Kent.

The article examines possible reasons for these

findings, in the context of London’s growth,

migration patterns and business opportunities.

Graham Maney (2nd from left) and Council members

More about life in Wapping will be revealed in an

article in a future Newsletter, based on Derek’s

further study of the London Dock Company’s

property transactions.

A newly discovered panorama

Our cover picture is a new discovery. It is a

remarkable coincidence that in the year of the

society’s publication of two panoramas, a hitherto

unknown panorama came onto the market.

Sotheby’s catalogue of 4 July 2018 described this

complete, circular image, joined at Westminster

Abbey, as ‘one of the finest drawings of its type’: a

preparatory study for a lost panorama of

approximately 30 metres in diameter, by the

French artist Prévost, showing the artist at the

pinnacle of a highly successful career as a

panoramist. The happy outcome of this discovery

was the purchase of the drawing by the Museum

of London, and we are grateful to Francis

Marshall from the Museum of London for the

account which appears in this Newsletter (see

p.4).

Our Backlist: Check up on your

LTS publications

Our stocks of some of our A to Z map volumes are

getting low. We have a few copies of Elizabethan,

Regency and

Restoration. If you have been

thinking of adding these titles to your library,

please contact the Treasurer to see if there are

copies left for you.

We have a few boxes of Georgian and plenty of

Victorian, Edwardian and Charles II, so they can

be ordered in the normal way, via the website or

the Treasurer.

Another publication which is about to go out of

print is 130, the Booth Poverty Maps. The cost to

members in UK of the remaining copies is £22

including postage and packing. Order via the

Treasurer, using a cheque or paying via Paypal

quoting the Treasurer’s email.

And a note from your Treasurer

Please check your Newsletter for enclosures. If you

have received a subscription invoice please make

your payment by one of the methods indicated in

the invoice. You can save money by completing the

standing order form which appears below the

invoice and sending it to your bank to arrive before

Christmas. You can of course set up the order

using internet banking, but please include the

reference.

If you have paid your 2018 subscription by

standing order or have paid in advance already to

cover 2019 there will be no invoice enclosed.

Historic Transport Map:

A Special Offer to LTS members

Ordnance Survey London Passenger Transport

Map, Sheet 106, Watford, 1” to 1 mile, published

1934, reprinted by ‘The

Charles Close Society for

the

study

Ordnance

Survey Maps’.

This

map

reproduction of one of the

twelve 1” sheets produced

as a result of the 1933

London

Passenger

Transport Act 1933. The

map tells an important part

of the early history of

London Transport and was

an essential planning tool

both for LT and other railway and bus operators in

and around London. It shows, in colour, the

various operating boundaries, roads and railways

on a black/blue outline. The map identifies where

LT was given operating powers, the absolute

monopoly of carriage of passengers by buses and

coaches as well as confirming operating rights

along key access roads outside the LPTB area.

Included with the map are two introductory

essays. The first, by Mike Horne, explains the

background to the formation of the LPTB and the

need for the map. Amazingly one of the causes of

the formation of LT was as a result of the stultifying

effects of bus and coach competition. This essay

also considers the different boundaries of London.

The second essay, by Richard Oliver, explains the

OS mapping history of the twelve sheets.

Despite the title of the Sheet being ‘Watford’ it

does in fact cover an area between Notting Hill,

Maidenhead, Wendover and Hatfield.

The offer is on a first come, first served basis. LTS

members may purchase the map for £5 (P&P in the

U.K. included) in two ways:

www.charlesclosesociety.org/mapshop

Select Maps from the past, Number 1 and under

Special price for CCS members enter the

code 1934 in the membership number.

Or by post: CCS Publications Manager, St

Nicholas, 16 East Hill Road, Oxted, Surrey RH8

9HZ. Cheques should be made payable to the

Charles Close Society.

The Charles Close Society was founded in 1980 to

bring together all those with an interest in the

maps and history of the Ordnance Survey of Great

Britain and its counterparts in the island of

Ireland. The Society takes its name from Colonel

Sir Charles Arden-Close, OS Director General from

1911 to 1922, and initiator of many of the maps

now sought after by collectors.

l l l l l l l l l l l l l l l

page 3

page 4

Prévost Panorama

“Earth has nothing to shew more fair”

A Panoramic View of London from the Tower

of St Margaret’s Church, Westminster

London from the Tower of St Margaret’s Church,

Westminster, by the French panorama painter,

Pierre Prévost (1764-1823), is perhaps the most

important topographical image the Museum of

London

has

acquired

since

the

Rhinebeck

Panorama in 1998. Measuring 85cm high x 605cm

wide, it is certainly the largest.

A strikingly realistic image of London in the first

decades of the nineteenth century, the view is a full

360° panorama of London seen from the tower of St

Margaret’s, the church situated within the shadow

of Westminster Abbey. In the immediate foreground

is Parliament Square, with Middlesex Guildhall on

the left, and the old Palace of Westminster and the

abbey on the right. Beyond are cattle grazing in St

James’s Park; Buckingham and Carlton Houses;

Banqueting House and St Martin-in-the-Fields; the

Thames and its crossings, Westminster and Strand

(soon to be renamed Waterloo) Bridges; semi-rural

stretches of Lambeth, with Randall Mill’s windmill

adjacent to the palace; and, above all, the

dominating mass of St Paul’s on the easterly

horizon. In the streets a company of soldiers

marches up towards Whitehall, a fight has broken

out, carriages are drawn-up alongside the Palace of

Westminster, and a large throng has gathered in a

side street. Shop fronts and doors are carefully

picked out in reds, yellows and greens, and, though

few are identifiable from the drawing, one is clearly

marked: Johnson’s Emery and Glass Paper

Manufactory.

Although clearly unfinished on the north bank,

John Rennie’s Strand Bridge, begun in 1810, is

largely complete. It opened in 1817, helping us to

pinpoint the date of the painting. Prévost had

painted London before, following a visit in 1802,

during the Peace of Amiens. It seems most likely he

returned in 1815, shortly after the Battle of

Waterloo, to prepare his second panorama of the

British capital. The result of this trip was the

present painting and a canvas, now lost, of some

32 metres in diameter exhibited in a custom-made

rotunda in Paris in 1817.1

The painting is on a continuous strip of paper and

not, as was previously thought, on a series of sheets

glued together.2 Appropriately enough, continuous

paper was invented in France but further developed

in England. Louis-Nicolas Robert invented a means

of producing continuous paper in France, in 1799,

but his business partner, Saint-Léger Didot, felt the

idea had a better chance of success in Britain than

in revolutionary France. Consequently, a refined

version of Robert’s system was patented in Britain

in 1801, by Didot’s brother-in-law, backed by

London stationers, the Fourdrinier brothers, who

gave their name to the new machine.3 The first

Fourdrinier machine was introduced into France in

1811, although there were only four in the country

by 1827.4 This raises the question of whether

Prévost bought his strip of paper whilst he was in

London or on his return to Paris.

It is not clear why Prévost chose this particular

tower as his vantage point. As the painting makes

plain, there were many other towers from which to

take in the broadest sweep of the metropolis, some

of which would have served his purpose as well, if

not better, than St Margaret’s. From a panorama

painter’s point of view, St Margaret’s has one

distinct problem: its close proximity to Westminster

Abbey means the medieval building entirely blocks

the western perspective. Prévost has turned this to

his advantage with a tour-de-force rendering of

light playing across the complex surfaces of the

abbey. Perhaps he had a contact who arranged

access to this church. On the other hand, he may

have actively sought this location. The panorama

contains a finely detailed depiction of the Old

Palace of Westminster. Bernard Comment raises

the question of the artist’s political views, noting

the omission of the Arc de Triomphe and the

Vendôme column from Prévost’s panorama of Paris

(c.1813-15).5 Might the emphasis on the seat of

British government, in the immediate aftermath of

the Napoleonic Wars, be evidence of the artist’s

political sympathies? Whatever the likelihood of

this, the painting certainly reveals London’s

ongoing attraction for Parisian and, more broadly,

European audiences, even at a time of profound

political turbulence.

The panorama’s focus on London as a seat of

political

power

complements

the

Rhinebeck

Panorama, which has mercantile London at its

heart, exemplified by the City, the Pool of London

and the wharves of Bermondsey. Furthermore, in

contrast to the Rhinebeck, which looks down on

London, as if from a balloon, Prévost’s panorama

looks across it, revealing an astonishingly low-rise

city. Alongside the bulk of St Paul’s, the only other

man-made features punctuating the horizon appear

to be the Foundling Hospital and Coldbath Fields

Prison.

Prévost’s painting is, in effect, the view of London

conjured a decade earlier by William Wordsworth in

his sonnet Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, 3

Sept. 1802.

Earth has nothing to shew more fair […]

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.6

One wonders just how smokeless the air would

have been. Wordsworth’s recollection that ‘[t]he

houses were not overhung by their cloud of smoke’

indicates how, even in the early nineteenth century,

the number and density of fires for heating and for

driving industry created a distinct pall over the city

– one all the more notable when absent.7 By 1819,

London ‘particulars’, especially dense, lingering

fogs, were already becoming a sufficient issue for

parliament to establish a select committee to

consider the ‘problem of smoke from steam engines

and furnaces.’ 8

By 1815, then, it is likely that London would have

basked only infrequently under quite such

luminous skies as Wordsworth and Prévost

envision. But, alongside realism, Prévost’s intention

was to create a dazzling visual spectacle and this

remarkable study provides ample evidence of his

ability to do just that.

– Francis Marshall, Museum of London

1. Sotheby’s, Old Master & British Works on Paper,

London 07/04/2018, Lot 79.

2. Ibid. The catalogue describes the drawing as being on

‘multiple sheet of paper’.

3. Hunter, D., Papermaking: the History and Technique

of an Ancient Craft

(New York: Alfred Knopf, 1947),

524.

4. Ibid., 536-7.

5. Comment, B., The Panorama

(London: Reaktion

Books, 1999), 44.

6. William Wordsworth, Gill, S. (ed.). The Major Works

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984, pbk ed 2000),

285.

7. Ibid., 710.

8. Nead, L., The Tiger in the Smoke: Art and Culture in

Post-War Britain

(New Haven and London: Yale

University Press, 2017), 23. See ref. to Stern, A. C.

(ed.), Air Pollution: Volume 1, Air Pollution and its

Effects

(London and New York: Academic Press,

1968), 5.

page 5

Changing London

Burlington Gardens, the very urban street parallel

and to the north of Piccadilly, may seem ill named.

It recalls the once extensive grounds that lay

behind the Duke of Burlington’s mansion, one of

the first to be built along Piccadilly, which in the

early eighteenth century was still on the outskirts

of built up London. By the nineteenth century the

gardens had disappeared and in the 1860s, when

Burlington House was transformed into the Royal

Academy of Art, the back of the site was developed

with a grand building in Renaissance style by Sir

James Pennethorne, designed as headquarters for

the University of London. But as we learned at our

last AGM, in the twentieth century the central

organisation

the

university

moved

Bloomsbury; the large white elephant in Burlington

Gardens, after various uses, has now been

refurbished as an extension to the Royal Academy.

The exterior, liberally ornamented with statues of

eminent European writers, philosophers and

scientists, is currently enlivened by a bright red

object which is not, as one might guess, a piece of

abstract sculpture, but a copy of one of the

cantilevering ‘rocker beams’ used in the Pompidou

Centre in Paris, the radical 1970s building which

made the architects Richard Rogers and Renzo

Piano famous; inside, until 20 January, there is an

exhibition about the work of Renzo Piano, now

better known in London as architect of ‘the Shard’.

The interior has other features to explore. From the

entrance hall one can ascend the grand stone stair

to the richly decorated ‘Senate Room’ (now bar and

café). Or one can penetrate the building further and

reach the old Royal Academy through the

capacious basements below the back of Burlington

House, where contemporary projects share the

space with casts, once the staple subject matter for

art students. The prelude to the basements is a

lively display (on until 3 February) devised by the

artist ‘Bob and Roberta Smith’ (Patrick Brill) which

celebrates his mother, the artist Deidre Borlase

(1925-2018), who studied at the RA and exhibited

at the Summer exhibitions. The longstanding

prejudice against women artists which she

encountered, which is now at last being recognised,

and which led her to avoid signing her works with

her first name, lasted into the later twentieth

century. Among her earlier works are some

atmospheric views of London backstreets and

industrial areas, painted on excursions when she

escaped from home, using her car as a studio.

Sadly, few of these survive. Her story is told in a

book by her son, The Secret to a Good Life. Are

there other forgotten London views by neglected

women artists? Please let us know!

page 6

The Royal Academy extension in Burlington Gardens, with copy of the cantilivered beam used at Piano and Rogers’ Pompidou centre in Paris

page 7

The topography of London’s

early playhouses

There is a fascinating reference in Grenade’s

Singularities of London (1578) to the ‘two very fine

theatres on the edge of Finsbury Fields – one of

which is magnificent in comparison with the other

and has an imposing appearance on the outside’.

The character of London’s early theatres has long

been a subject for debate, spurred by recent

discoveries. Julian Bowsher assesses both the

archaeological and the documentary evidence, and

sets these building in their topographical context.

Despite the size and diversity of modern London,

it’s ‘theatreland’ is still described as the ‘West End’

which lies just west of the original City and not far

from Westminster. In the sixteenth century the

famous ‘Shakespearean’ playhouses were distinctly

situated outside the City, particularly in the

suburbs

the

north

(Shoreditch),

south

(Newington Butts) and east (Mile End); the last two

areas being almost rural.

In the sixteenth century London saw an

enormous growth in its population, both in the City

itself and in the expanding suburbs. The mid-

sixteenth-century population of Greater London of

c.100,000 was doubled within a century. Sixteenth

century roads were generally abominable; south of

the Thames conditions were dominated by riverine

flooding and unhealthy marshlands. The Privy

Council’s description of ‘the tediousness of the way’

to Newington was not a comment on the half hour

from London Bridge but more likely referred to the

notorious flooding along the route. However the

walk of an hour or so from the City was an almost

negligible time for most Elizabethans, when it took

two weeks to walk to Scotland.

Commercial playing in London started in the late

1530s, developing out of older traditions of

religious drama, fairground shows, and royal,

aristocratic and civic entertainment. In 1557 two

inns beyond the City limits put on plays: at the

Saracen’s Head in Islington and the Boar’s Head

outside

Aldgate.

Commercial

considerations

encouraged the establishment of playhouses along

the major thorougfares such as Mile End, where

seasonal fairs attracted the City populace.

For purpose built venues, a location in the

suburbs was cheaper and more spacious. But the

natural forces were (as now) tempered by

demographic, economic and political criteria firmly

in the hands of the City. The Lord Mayor could

extend his jurisdiction into Middlesex in order to

safeguard the City. Southwark on the south bank

was actually part of Surrey but from 1555 it was a

‘Ward Without (the City)’ allowing the Lord Mayor

to oversee this area. Moreover, the Privy Council,

with an eye on national safety, could override

suburban development. The plague, always a

recurrent theme in the history of London, had been

particularly bad in 1563; it was thought that it may

have been caused, and certainly exacerbated, by

the crowded playhouses.

The main north-south axis through London

linked the two most famous theatrical areas, from

Shoreditch High Street to the north then through

the City itself, where plays were licensed in inns

along the way: the Bull in Bishopsgate and the

Cross Keys and the Bell in Gracious (now

Gracechurch) Street. Drama was a side show to the

main business of inn-keeping and coaching, but

performances were within large rooms within the

inn (sometimes upstairs) as well as in the yards.

Across the river, via London Bridge into Southwark

with its entertainment area on Bankside, the road

continued south to Newington Butts (now the

Elephant and Castle area) with its early playhouse.

To the east, Mile End, well known for its fairs and

the annual mustering of the London militia, was a

popular location for city revellers and there is

indeed evidence that a play was

performed there in 1501. The ‘scaffold

or stage’ in the ‘courte or yarde’ of the

Red Lion built by John Brayne in

1567 appears to be the first purpose

built venue ‘for public interludes or

plays’ in (greater) London. Legal

disputes between Brayne and his

carpenters provides some detail of the

building

but

other

than

the

performance of a play Samson little is

known beyond that year.

South of the river at Newington

Butts, a well to do village at a major

road junction, Richard Hicks leased a

plot In 1566 and built ‘a messuage or

tenement’. Jerome Savage, a leading

player with the Earl of Warwick’s

Company, took a sub-lease from

Hicks on the property before 1576, for

on 25 March of that year he extended

it to 30 years with Hicks. In 1596, the

B i s h o p s g a t e

R i v e r

F l e e t

R i v e r F l e e t

St Paul’s

cathedral

St Paul’s

cathedral

C h e a p s i d e

R i v e r

T h a m e s

London

bridge

Swan

Hope

Rose

Globe

Red Bull

Salisbury Court

Whitefriars

Smithfield

Blackfriars

Bell Savage inn

Bell inn

Bull inn

Cross Keys inn

Red Lion

Boar’s Head

Fortune

Theatre

Curtain

Porter’s Hall

theatres

playhouses

inns

inns converted to playhouses

500m

site contained ‘one messuage or tenement

heretofore by one Richard Hicks, deceased, erected

and built upon parcel of the said lands, now called

the playhouse’. The clear inference is that Savage

converted the original building into a playhouse –

probably

therefore

square

rectangular.

Numerous performances were recorded there before

it was finally closed by 1596.

North of the City, a ‘private’ theatre was built by

the courtier John Rastell in 1524 in the ‘back

garden’ of his property on Old Street, to the north-

west of Shoreditch, a thriving City suburb which

became the first theatrical ‘district’ of London. The

parish church of St Leonard’s was often known as

the actors’ church on account of the many who

were baptised, married or buried there. Even after

the theatrical area of London had shifted

southwards, many actors and writers were still

living here and commuting to the Bankside.

One of the major impressarios of this theatrical

period was James Burbage who built the ‘Theatre’

in the former precinct of Holywell Priory from April

1576 – (Grenade’s ‘magnificent’ theatre) – the first

successful venue and the first to be built in a

polygonal shape. His son later described him as

‘first builder of playhouses’, although he may have

been associated with his brother-in-law Brayne –

with whom he fell out – at the Red Lion, Mile End,

and indeed at other venues later. It is also fairly

certain that the Newington Butts venue was open

before the Theatre. Laurie Johnson has made the

intriguing observation that as the Newington Butts

site was specifically described as the Playhouse,

Burbage called his new venue the Theatre in

contradistinction!

The term playhouse derived from the medieval

‘pleghows’ or ‘pleghus’ whereas theatre came from

the Greek (and later Latin) theatrum meaning a

‘place for viewing’. The two terms were clearly

known and used by the 1570s, but very few

Englishmen at the time would have seen the

theatres of ancient Greece or Rome. I have used the

terms here to distinguish between an open-air

(usually polygonal) venue (playhouse) and a covered

indoor venue (theatre).

The second playhouse in Shoreditch, was the

Curtain. It was situated within the Curtain estate,

or Close, being a paddock of the Priory just to the

north. The Curtain is thought to have been opened

just after the Theatre because it was not mentioned

in an order of August 1577, which only mentions

‘the Theatre and such like’, though this is not

conclusive, but it was certainly open for business

by December of that year, when it is mentioned

with its neighbour as a ‘school for wickedness’.

This playhouse has long been an enigma owing to

the shortage of documentary sources relating to its

exact location, construction or layout. Initial

interpretation of the archaeological investigation on

Curtain Road was confused as it revealed remains

of a rectangular building built and rebuilt a

number of times. Like Newington it was probably a

converted house. Leases, beginning in 1567,

describe a ‘house, tenement or lodge commonly

called the Curtain’ (and adjoining land). It was

probably built sometime between 1538 and 1567.

William Middleton owned a lease, described in a

petition of 1584, in ‘the grounde called the Curteyn

where now comenlye the Playes be playde’ (my

italics). More telling is a passage in a lease of 1611

which describes, slightly ambiguously ‘All that large

messuage or tenement built of timber and thatch,

now in decay, called the Curtain with a parcel of

ground adjoining thereto wherein they use to keep

stage plays’ – (though we know that playing

continued through this period). If this conversion is

accepted, the playhouse might be identified on the

Booth engraving as that rectangular building with a

flag just to the right of the polygonal playhouse

which must be the Theatre, albeit with some

artistic licence.

Bankside on the south bank, next to London

Bridge and on the highway into Kent. had a

history of ‘entertainment’ – another red light

district, albeit closed before the advent of the

playhouses and the animal baiting arenas known

as the ‘bear gardens’ – mostly also polygonal in

form. The first appeared in the 1520s and the

last was pulled down only in 1682. One of them,

the Hope of 1613’, was ingeniously designed to

be dual purpose, having animal baiting on four

days and drama – on a temporary stage – on the

remaining three. Nevertheless, the arrival of the

playhouses created a new theatrical district. The

Rose was built in 1587 by Philip Henslowe –

another great impresario whose surviving papers

have provided so much about theatrical life in

the Shakespearean age. The Rose seems to have

been based on the Theatre; it was the same

shape and size and its carpenter John Grigge

was possibly involved in the construction of the

page 8

entrance

ingressus

yard

great barn

80' x 24'

Holywell Priory

western wall

?stage

?ingressus

10m

page 9

Theatre. It was partially enlarged in 1591 and

was a successful playhouse until finally pulled

down in 1606.

The

attraction

the

Bankside

brought

competition, firstly from the Swan in 1595, 490 yds

to the west. A drawing of its interior is unique

amongst London’s playhouses. It was described as

the most lavish such venue when new but it was

sorely dilapidated by the 1630s. Much more serious

competition arrived with the Globe – ‘The Glory of

the Banke’ – in 1599. This first building burned

down in 1613 but was swiftly rebuilt – to the same

size – the next year. The association with

Shakespeare certainly enhanced its reputation and

it was much larger than the earlier generation of

playhouses.

As the Rose lost ground to the Globe, Henslowe

and his son in law Edward Alleyn crossed over to

Cripplegate to build the Fortune in 1600. Inventive

as ever, Henslowe hired the carpenter Peter Street

(who had just built the Globe) who created a square

building according to the surviving building

contract. There had been local opposition to a new

playhouse but Henslowe’s aristocratic patrons put

pressure on the local community by saying that the

location was very remote from any population

centre that ‘none could be annoyed thereby’ and

that the builders would contribute generously to

the parish poor, at a time when their own funds

were hard stretched.

John Wolf was a well-known printer and

publisher with a large and diverse portfolio but

without, it seems, influential backers. In 1600 the

Privy Council discovered that ‘contrary to Her

Majesty’s proclamation and orders’, he ‘hath begun

to erect and build a playhouse in Nightingale Lane,

leading down to the small settlement of Wapping on

the Thames. Foundations of this playhouse may

have been laid but the project seems to have been

abandoned.

Theatrical development around London was still a

feasible business. The Boar’s Head inn in Aldgate

was fully converted into a playhouse in 1598, with

some success as it was remodelled the next year.

However, another attempt to convert the George

Inn, just east of the Boar’s Head, by John Brayne

into a playhouse fell foul of the law. The Red Bull

inn in St John’s Street was successfully converted

in 1607 and flourished for many years. This area,

just west of Cripplegate, was already a ‘red light’

district with bowling alleys, a puppet theatre and,

later, an animal baiting ring.

Within the City itself, there was a theatrical

development in and around the former Blackfriars

Friary ‘scituated in the bosome of the Cittie’. The

smart and wealthy residents in this area overcame

their initial opposition as the venues were much

more refined and exclusive than the suburban

playhouses. The audience were all seated and as

they were covered, there was expensive lighting by

candlelight. There was also a ready audience

amongst the gentlemen scholars at the nearby Inns

of Court. There was also a short lived ‘theatre’

within St Paul’s Cathedral, ostensibly training choir

boys in religious drama. Burbage’s first ‘Blackfriars’

theatre foundered in 1576 but its successor thrived

from 1609. A late Henslowe development in the

area was the Porters Hall of 1615.

Inevitably theatres spread westward over the

Fleet, firstly within the former Whitefriars in 1606

and lastly the Salisbury Court in 1629. The farthest

was the conversion of a cockpit in Drury Lane into

the Phoenix theatre in 1615. All the playhouses,

theatres, tennis courts and other entertainment

venues were closed by Parliament in 1642. The

Phoenix however survived the Commonwealth into

the Restoration only to be redeveloped as a

tenement block in the mid 1660s. Nevertheless, it

was clearly the beginning of the modern ‘West End’

theatre land.

Archaeology has uncovered, in various limits, the

Rose (1989) – the largest excavation, the Theatre

(2008), what is probably the Curtain (2011), the

Hope (1999) and the Globe (1989). An attempt to

locate the Boar’s Head (1998) found nothing.

Nothing is visible now, but the outline of the Rose

is marked out below Rose Court, as is a small area

of the Globe in a yard over the road.

The buildings reveal a topographical concern for

traffic and commerce. It used to be thought that all

the stages were situated in the southern or south-

west of the playhouses because that was the area of

even light in the afternoons. Excavation and

documentary research revealed that the stages

were opposite the main entrances and the main

entrances were on the public highway regardless of

orientation, in order to channel people through one

paying area. We know that there were back doors,

behind the stage, at the Rose, Globe and Fortune at

least, however these would be private access

points, ‘stage doors’ or service entrances.

London was comparatively small compared to

today and most venues were within easy reach.

Some thrived in the competition, others closed.

Many were rebuilt, improved or provided the Tudor

equivalent of ‘special effects’ and ‘star performers’.

The explosion of theatrical development in

sixteenth- and seventeenth-century London was a

very localised phenomenon. In contrast, the few

modest venues that appeared in Bristol, York,

Tonbridge and Prescot were largely without

competition.

– Julian Bowsher