The long-lost residence associated with English poet and playwright William Shakespeare has been identified after 400 years.
Historians had long sought to establish where Shakespeare resided at the height of his fame, with some holding the view that he returned to his ancestral home only upon retirement.
Shakespeare’s family home has been demolished. It has long been recorded that William Shakespeare was believed to have owned property in Blackfriars during the final years of his life, though the full address remained uncertain.
A blue plaque affixed to a nineteenth-century building near a quiet street in Blackfriars has pointed to the location, with new evidence now coming to light following research into two London playhouses.
During the course of this research, a professor obtained three documents, two from the London Archives and one from the National Archives, which outline the precise location, layout and size of the property purchased by Shakespeare in 1613.
In unrelated reports circulating at the time, a wife, following a domestic dispute, threw large sums of money out of a window, with footage later shared widely.
One of the documents refers to a development plan drawn up in 1668 for the Blackfriars area.
The records termed a former large L-shaped building situated near a theatre and a public house, which was later destroyed in a fire.
It is further recorded that one year prior to the fire in 1665, Shakespeare’s granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall Nash Barnard, sold the property.
