Located on the S side of Maiden Lane, in the Liberty of the Clink and the parish of St Saviour, Southwark, the Globe was built with disassembled timbers taken from the Theatre in Shoreditch. References to the original lease in later court documents describe two combined properties, one 220' in length from E to W and the other approximately 156' in length from E to W by 100' in breadth. The initial ground lease for the playhouse property was held by Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, William Shakespeare, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, John Heminges and Will Kempe, and was held continuously by shareholders connected to the Lord Chamberlain's Men and the King's Men until its termination at Christmas 1644. References to the original lease in subsequent court records suggest that the property included auxiliary buildings in varying states of repair and that in addition to the playhouse, the leaseholders also built smaller supplemental structures.
Although plans for the construction of either phase of the playhouse building do not survive, illustrations from period views represent it as circular in shape with an open inner yard surrounded by covered galleries. The use of timbers from the Theatre and the involvement of Peter Street, carpenter and builder of the Theatre and Fortune playhouses, with its construction may suggest the likelihood of architectural similarity between the 3 structures.The limited scope of archaeological remains precludes sure conclusions about the exact shape of the playhouse, although extrapoloation from extant fragments supports a polygonal structure of 16 or 18 sides.
The original Globe building burned down when its thatched roof caught fire during a performance in 1613. It was immediately rebuilt by the playhouse shareholders at purportedly greater expense and with a tiled roof on the same site, and possibly on the original foundations. In addition to the tiled roof, the second Globe structure may have included a stair tower or similar supplemental feature on its outer wall, as well as a double-gabled stage covering with a number of support pillars.
The end of the Globe was signaled by the general closing of London's theatres after 1642, as well as the expiry of the lease between the playhouse sharers and Matthew Brend, the owner of the property, in 1644. By 1655, the playhouse had been pulled down and replaced by tenements.
1599, 21 September Swiss traveller Thomas Platter attended a performance of Julius Caesar at a thatched building across the Thames, implying the Globe (Wickham et al, English Professional Theatre, 497).
ca. 1599 The Lord Chamberlain's Men performed Ben Jonson's Every Man Out of his Humour; through its association with the troupe, the Globe is the likely venue (Jonson, Works, A6).
1600, 22 June A Privy Council order declares that as the chosen venue of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, the Globe will be the sole playhouse permitted in the county of Surrey (Wickham et al, English Professional Theatre, 498).
1601, 7 February A performance 'of Kyng Harry the iiiith and of the kyllyng of Kyng Richard the Second' by the Lord Chamberlain's Men at the Globe was commissioned in the days before the rebellion of Lord Essex and his followers (Hammer, 'Shakespeare's Richard II', 18--19).
1603, 19 May Letters patent recognized the Chamberlain's Men as the King's Men, and granted them permission to perform at their 'usual house, the Globe, within our County of Surrey' (Chambers, 'Patent Rolls,' 264--5).
1611 Prince Otto von Hessen-Cassell visited London and described the Globe as lit by candles, the best of London's theatres, and home to the best of its playing companies (Feyerabend, 'Zu K. H. Schaible's,' 440).
1619, 27 March A royal patent licensed the King's Men to perform at the Globe, Blackfriars, and throughout the realm, excepting times of plague (Chambers, 'Patent Rolls', 280--2).
1624, 6-17 August The King's Men performed Thomas Middleton's A Game at Chess and drew great audiences to the Globe. The topical content of the play offended the Spanish ambassador and led to a brief suspension of all playing at the Globe, followed by the censoring of the play (Bald, 'Documents', 159--66).
1625, 24 June King Charles renewed the patent allowing the King's Men to perform at the Globe (Chambers, 'Patent Rolls,' 282--3).
1628, 5 August The Duke of Buckingham reportedly called for and attended a performance of Shakespeare's Henry VIII at the Globe (Braunmuller, '"To the Globe"', 350).
1630/1, 18 February Henry Herbert received a fee from John Lowin for allowing a Dutch vaulter to perform at the Globe (Wickham et al, English Professional Theatre, 616).
1634, 20 July The King's Men petition the Lord Chamberlain to prohibit other companies from producing plays about witches until their own can be completed and performed; later in 1634 the title-page of printed edition of The Late Lancashire Witches advertises that the play was performed at the Globe (Chambers, 'Lord Chamberlain's Office', 410).
ca. 1635 In a petition submitted to the Lord Chamberlain's Office, representatives of the King's Men contended that the ownership structure of the Globe and Blackfriars playhouses unfairly favoured consortrium sharers such as John Shank and Cuthbert Burbage, and prevented players from profiting from their contributions to the company (Chambers, 'Lord Chamberlain's Office', 362-4).
1635, 12 July The Lord Chamberlain rules in favour of the King's Men in the 'Sharers' Papers' suit: they are to be allowed to purchase shares in the Globe and Blackfriars for the remainder of each respective lease (Chambers, 'Lord Chamberlain's Office', 365).
1639 Henry Herbert licensed the tragedy 'Walstein, Duke of Fredland' for the Globe (Bawcutt, Control and Censorship, 205).
1640, June 1 James Shirley's Rosania, later renamed The Doubtful Heir, licensed for the King's Men; Shirley's 1646 Poems included the selection entitled 'Prologue at the Globe to his Comedy call'd The doubtfull Heire, which should have been presented at the Black-Friers' (Bentley, Jacobean and Caroline Stage, vol 1, 108).
The site of the original Globe playhouse is currently covered by 1/15 Anchor Terrace, Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1, built in 1834 and a listed building under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. A memorial plaque indicates the vicinity of the original property from the public roadway, and a ring of paving stones marks the approximate location of circular foundation remnants from the playhouse, discovered and partially excavated in 1989. Further archaeological access is unlikely due to the protected status of the Anchor Terrace building.
1554, October Thomas Brend, scrivener of London, purchased the messuage in the Clink Liberty, Southwark, on which the Globe was later built. He paid John Yong, skinner of London, £240 for the property. At the time the messuage was described as houses, lands and gardens (Berry, Shakespeare's Playhouses, 82; Bowsher and Miller, Rose and the Globe, 86).
1598/9, 21 January Globe messuage leased for 31 years to Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, William Shakespeare, Augustine Phillips, Thomas Pope, John Heminges and Will Kempe (Berry, Shakespeare's Playhouses, 197--8).
ca. 1598, 28 December According to Giles Allen's later testimony, Cuthbert Burbage and a company of confederates occupied the Theatre property and forcibly dismantled the playhouse structure, afterwards transporting the materials to a new location where they eventually erected the Globe (Wallace, First London Theatre, 276--83).
1599, 16 May The Inquisition post mortem for Thomas Brend (d. 21 September 1598) includes reference to his lands owned in the parish of St Saviour, Southwark, and inherited by his son, Nicholas Brend. The 'house newly built with a garden pertaining to the same... in the occupation of William Shakespeare and others' was the Globe Theatre (Wickham et al, English Professional Theatre, 497).
1600, 8 January Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn contracted with Peter Street, carpenter of the Globe, to build the Fortune Theatre. The agreement expressly indicates that the new structure follow, with some modifications, the design of Globe (Rutter, Documents, 174--7).
1601, 7 October Nicholas Brend (d. 12 October 1601), mortgaged properties in Southwark, including the Globe playhouse, to his step-brother, Sir John Bodley of Streatham, Surrey, Sir Matthew Browne and John Collett, merchant taylor of London, towards payment of his debts amounting to £1478 (Braines, Site of the Globe, 27).
1608 John Collett sold his interest in the Globe and other properties in London to Bodley (Berry, Shakespeare's Playhouses, 88).
1613, 29 June The first Globe Theatre was destroyed by fire after stray cannonfire ignited its thatched roof during a performance of Henry VIII or All is True (Stow, Annales, 2nd ed, Iiii).
1613, October 26 In consideration of the loss by fire of the playhouse and the expense of rebuilding it, John Bodley extends the thirty-one year lease of the Globe property to the sharers by an additional six years (Berry, Shakespeare's Playhouses, 222).
1614 In an epigram, John Taylor described the Globe as once having a 'thatched hide,' but now 'stately' in its rebuilt form (Chambers, Elizabethan Stage, vol 2, 422).
1621/2, 21 February No longer a ward and able to claim his inheritance, ownership of the Globe playhouse and other properties in Southwark was restored to Matthew Brend by John Bodley in a Court of Wards suit. The document names Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare as tenants (Braines, Site of the Globe, 27).
1623/4, 12 March Sir Matthew Brend assigned the Globe messuage, including the playhouse, to his wife, Frances, daughter of Sir William Smith (Braines, Site of the Globe, 27).
1631/2, January 28 Cuthbert Burbage and the representatives of the other original lessees of the Globe Theatre (Richard Robinson, his wife Winifred, William Heminges, John Lowin and Joseph Taylor) submit a bill of complaint in a Court of Requests suit against Sir Matthew Brend. WIth the original lease of 31 years expired, Brend refused to honour the 1613 extension between the sharers and John Bodley, completed when Brend was a minor (Berry, Shakespeare's Playhouses, 197-203).
1634, 5 February In a statement of fact from the Court of Requests suit between the King's Men and Brend, the players claim that they spent £700 to build the first Globe and £1000 to rebuild it when that structure was consumed by fire in 1613. They contended that their investment in the playhouse structure should be a mitigating factor against Brend's move to modify the lease (Berry, Shakespeare's Playhouses, 220-2).
1634, 18 November In the Court of Requests case between the King's Men and Brend, the court orders an increase of rent to £40 per annum and maintains that the extension of nine years is valid (Berry, Shakespeare's Playhouses, 237).
1637, 28 November The original lease on the Globe property now expired by two years and the 1634 order unactioned, the King's Men and Brend return to the Court of Requests to seek a resolution. The suit concludes with a 9-year extension of the original lease from its termination at Christmas 1635; for 1 of the 2 years of their tenancy since and for the remaining seven years of the extension, the players were to pay the 'improved rent' to Brend (Berry, Shakespeare's Playhouses, 239--40).
1642, 2 September A parliamentary order demands that 'publike Stage-playes shall cease, and bee forborne' in the troubled moral atmosphere of England's Civil War and conflict in Ireland (Bawcutt, 'Puritanism', 186).
1655, 17 October The marriage contract between Thomas Brend, son of Globe property owner Sir Matthew Brend, and Judith Smith refers to 'messuages or tenements' built on the site where the Globe playhouse once stood (Wickham et al, English Professional Theatre, 622).
1706, December 21 A deed relating to a mortgage between Timothy Cason and his wife Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Sir Thomas Brend, and William James, citizen and merchant taylor, mentions tenements 'erected and built where the late playhouse called the Globe stood and upon the ground thereunto belonging' (Martin, 'Globe Playhouse,' 171).
1726/7, 9 February Timothy and Elizabeth Cason lease land, likely the same property referred to in the 1706 deed, where a workhouse for the poor was erected to John Lade, James Kinder, and other parishioners of Southwark (Martin, 'Globe Playhouse,' 171-2).
1777, 28-9 May Henry Thrale, owner of the Anchor Brewery, purchased the land associated with the Southwark workhouse for consolidation into the brewery (Martin, 'Globe Playhouse,' 174).
1832 Most of the Anchor Brewery buildings were consumed by fire and rebuilt shortly thereafter (Roberts and Godfrey, ed, Bankside, 78-80).
1834 The Anchor Terrace building was built by Barclay, Perkins & Co. at 1–15 Southwark Bridge Road (Roberts and Godfrey, ed, Bankside, 88--9).
1909, October A memorial plaque commemorating the Globe Theatre installed on a wall of the Anchor Brewery by the Shakesepare Reading Society (Martin, 'Globe Playhouse,' 149).
1989, 3 July--16 October The Museum of London discovered and excavated remnants of the Globe's foundations beneath a car park at the Anchor Terrace building, located on the NW part of the former Anchor Brewery site (Blatherwick and Gurr, 'Shakespeare's Factory,' 315).
