Shakespeare’s missing London home pinpointed after centuries-long mystery, researcher says

A portrait of English playwright William Shakespeare, whose works are celebrated worldwide and commonly taught in American English courses.(Universal History Archive/UIG/Getty Images)

The professor told KCL, “I was doing research as part of a wider project and couldn’t believe it when I realized what I was looking at — the floorplan of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars house.”

The property’s exact location “has puzzled academics since the 18th century,” though scholars have long known that Shakespeare owned property in Blackfriars later in life, the university said. 

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“It has long been thought that Shakespeare retired from his London theater career not long after he purchased the Blackfriars house in 1613, returning to Stratford-upon-Avon, where he had a comfortable life as a gentleman,” KCL’s release stated.

“However, this discovery could indicate that Shakespeare spent more time in London in his later years than has been thought.”

Researchers traced the likely site of William Shakespeare’s long-lost London home to the Blackfriars district, placing it near the area where prominent playhouses operated during his career.(Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images)

�s “confident” that her discovery marks the exact location of Shakespeare’s property.

The professor said a “continuous paper trail” from 1613 to 1667 confirms the property’s exact location, backed by indentures, lease records and a map drafted shortly after theGreat Fire of Londonin 1666.

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The documents also shed some light on how Shakespeare may have used the property, though it’s not entirely clear.

“It’s exciting to realize that there are still new things to find out about Shakespeare’s life and career.”

She added the evidence suggests Shakespeare may have intended to use theLondon propertyhimself, not just as an investment — though the property “clearly had the potential for subdivision.”

Said Munro, “We know from his will that he had rented it out by 1616, as he mentions his tenant, John Robinson, but when Shakespeare bought the house he seems to have gone to some lengths to get it with vacant possession,” meaning there were no sitting tenants. 

Researchers used historical deeds and records dating back to 1613 to identify the location of William Shakespeare’s former London property in Blackfriars.(Aaron Chown/PA Images via Getty Images)

The house is also less than a five-minute walk from the Blackfriars playhouse, where Shakespeare wasworking and co-authoring plays, which Munro says “suggests that we need to reappraise what he was doing in 1613.”

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She said that year is “generally treated in the scholarship as a kind of phased retirement to Stratford, but I think that this view is conditioned in part by the fact that we know that he died in 1616 — he obviously did not know that!”

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So “the purchase of a substantial house in the Blackfriars precinct complicates things, as it argues that he had an ongoing professional and substantial investment in London.”

Munro saidfuture excavationsat the site are “unlikely at this stage,” noting a previous investigation there did not uncover any archaeological remains — but that doesn’t mean that research won’t continue.

Researchers identified the likely location of William Shakespeare’s long-lost London home in the Blackfriars district, placing it near where historic playhouses once stood, pictured at left, during his career.(MOLA/Getty Images;Stock Montage/Getty Images)

“I’d like to know more about Shakespeare’s intentions when he bought it, and whetherhis daughter and granddaughterever stayed there, but these things are very difficult to recover from the kinds of documentation that mostly survive, such as property transactions,” Munro added — noting there’s still some potential to find out who Shakespeare’s neighbors were in 1613.

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“It’s exciting to realize that there are still new things to find out about Shakespeare’s life and career, despite the work ofmany brilliant biographers, archaeologists, social historians and others, over more than two centuries.”