On , St George’s Day ,the Anniversary of Shakespeare birth (?) and death we take a long walk around Shakespeare’s London.
Although many choose to take a pilgrimage to Stratford, here in London is the right place to worship at the font of his genius. We don’t know how Shakespeare got to London or began his involvment as a playwright, but we do have a lot of biographical details so that we can trace his life and career in London.
We will start at Liverpool Street and explore late 16th Century Shoreditch where the early Theatres – the Theatre and the Curtain were built. We then walk through Bishopsgate into St Helens where he lived and used as a location in his plays.
From there we explore the City of London which was in the midst of a massive population explosion and was full of young people shaking off their traditional lives to find a new one in the fleshpots of London.
We walk through the French Quarter and to the house where he lodged, near the Museum of London and to the ruins of St Mary where his fellow actors were church wardens and who saved for posterity his plays by publishing the First Folio.
We go past the Guildhall where Jewish Doctor Lopez was found guilty of plotting to poison Queen Elizabeth a few years before the writing of the Merchant of Venice. At St Pauls we discover where Falstaff obtained his untrustworthy servant Bardolph. Then to Carter Lane, where the only letter that survives to Shakespeare was written. This leads us to the Blackfriars where Shakespeare helped found his winter theatre.
We cross the river to explore the Southbank and the Rose and the Globe Theatres where Shakespeare found the height of his fame, before retiring to an early death in Stratford on Avon.
Visschers view of 1616
Shakespeare from the First Folio
16th Century London
The Curtain Theatre
St Pauls – Shakespeare’s plays were published in the area around the Cathedral
Site of the Theatre, timbers of which were moved to Southwark to build the Globe
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