Shakespeare's 'missing' home mapped with discovery

A Shakespeare expert identifies the location and size of the property the playwright bought in1613. Shakespeare's 'missing' Blackfriars home mapped with discovery Copyright current_year BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking. Copyright current_year BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking. The discovery may indicate that Shakespeare spent more time in London in his later years than previously thought A black and white portrait of William Shakespeare from the title page of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare's 'missing' home mapped with discovery The exact location of William Shakespeare's only London property has been pinpointed to a Blackfriars street, after an unknown floorplan was discovered. Shakespeare expert Prof Lucy Munro from King's College London identified the location and size of the property he bought in 1613. It had been thought that Shakespeare retired from his theatre career not long after he bought the house and returned to Stratford-upon-Avon. However, academics believe the discovery could indicate that the playwright spent more time in London than previously believed. It also means that the blue plaque for Shakespeare on St Andrew's Hill is not "near" the site of his London house, but on the spot it used to exist. Shakespeare's Blackfriars property was thought to have been part of "the Great Gate" over the entrance to the Blackfriars precinct, a major 13th-century Dominican friary. Munro uncovered three documents – two from the London Archives and one from the National Archives – that provided more information. The plan detailed the size and location of the property Property plan of the parish of St Ann Blackfriars: The London Archives reference number: CLC/522/MS14570/001. Munro said: "I was doing research as part of a wider project and couldn't believe it when I realised what I was looking at - the floorplan of Shakespeare's Blackfriars house. "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. "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." One of the documents was a plan of part of the Blackfriars precinct, drawn up in 1668, two years after the Great Fire of London, which confirmed the precise location and size of Shakespeare's Blackfriars house. The part of the property that spanned the gate did not appear in the post-fire plan because it had no foundation. Munro said: "This house was close to [Shakespeare's] workplace at the Blackfriars theatre. "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." The other two of these documents relate to the sale of the Blackfriars property by Shakespeare's granddaughter in 1665. The property covered what are now the eastern end of Ireland Yard, the bottom of Burgon Street and parts of the late 19th-century buildings at 5 Burgon Street and 5 St Andrew's Hill. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hello.bbclondon@bbc.co.uk Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on A portrait of William Shakespeare depicts him looking thoughtfully at the viewer. He has a bushy beard, while the painting is marked with the date 1608 in the top left corner. Letter reveals Shakespeare did not abandon his wife Angel Delgadillo still welcomes travellers to Seligman, Arizona – the town he fought to save when the "Mother Road" was forgotten. Moving "from the slums to the exclusive salons", Brassaï captured the brothels, gay bars and backstreets of Paris's hazy night-time in its radical inter-war years. The auction takes place in the same week as Southampton marks the 114th anniversary of the Titanic tragedy. Home to Harrods and the Science Museum, this west London borough is currently under Tory control. Hadush Kebatu's mistaken release is a "symptom of a broken system", a former Met officer says. Home of Arsenal FC and Sadler's Wells theatre, the council is up for election on 7 May. Home of Syon House and Brentford Lock, Hounslow council is up for election on 7 May. Jason Perry, who was first elected as mayor in 2022, is running along with seven other candidates.