Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/20

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. xn. JULY 3, 1915.

is known that the land upon which the Globe Playhouse was erected belonged to Nicholas Brand of West Moulsey. He granted a lease, dated 25 Dec., 1598, of this land to Cuthbert and Richard Burbage, William Shakespeare, and others. Owing to a dispute an action at law was instituted respecting the division of the profits of the Globe, and another theatre called the " Blackfriars." In this action it was neces- sary to recount the boundaries of the land which was included in the lease, and upon which the theatre stood. This legal docu- ment was discovered by Dr. William Wallace in the Coram Rege Roll, 1616.

There were two pieces of land included in this lease. They were divided by a way or lane running east and west. One piece of land was therefore on the north of this way or lane, and the other was on its southern side.

In the Coram Rege Roll document the northern piece of land is described as " lying and adjoining upon a way or lane on one side, and abutting upon a piece of land called the Park upon the north." The other piece of land is described " as lying and ad- joining upon the other side of the way or lane .... and upon a lane called Maiden Lane towards the south."

In Maiden Lane ran the common sewer, the centre of which doubtless formed the southern boundary of Nicholas Brand's property, and divided his land from the Lord Bishop of Winchester's Park.

In 1626 Sir Matthew Brand, the son of Nicholas Brand, sold this southern piece of land to Hillarie Mempris. The conveyance describes the boundaries in the following terms :

"Bounded by the King's highway called Dead- man's Place 1 on the east, and by the brook or common sewer dividing the land from the park of

the Lord Bishop of Winchester on the south

and an alley or way leading to the Globe Play- house, commonly called Globe Alley, on the north

and contained in breadth from the path called

Globe Alley on the north to the common sewer

on the south one hundred and twenty-four feet or thereabouts."

By accepting these perfectly plain state- ments in their obvious and literal sense, it is an easy matter to determine the exact position of the first Globe Alley.

By taking the common sewer in Maiden Lane (now Park Street, Southwark) as the southern boundary, and as a base from which to make a survey, I have arrived at the following interesting and, to my mind, con- clusive results.

From above the common sewer in Park Street I measured off 124 ft. along Bank End (old Deadman's Place). At a distance of 124 ft. from the common sewer I found myself opposite a pair of wooden gates giving access to a yard known as Ironworks Yard.

Behind Ironworks Yard may still be seen the route of the way or lane behind the backs of the warehouses which front upon Bankside on the north, and Park Street on the south. This way or lane could only have been t he- original ^ Globe Alley leading to the Globe Playhouse. But the evidence that it was so does not stop here. The pair of wooden, gates are on the west side of Bank End, and they are immediately opposite Clink Street r which here enters Bank End on the east side of that road. By a reference now to Visscher's ' View of Southwark,' 1616, this way or lane is shown entering Deadman's- Place on its western side, immediately op- posite Clink Street. This way or lane shown in the ' View ' gives direct access to the- Globe. From the deed of transfer from Brand to Mempris it appears that this way or lane was " commonly called Globe Alley."

The Globe Alley to which MBS. STOPES refers is a- later creation, and it has been the- cause of many years of dispute.

The Globe Playhouse actually stood on the northern of the two pieces of land owned by Brand. This northern piece of land 1 in the Coram Rege Roll document is said to- be bounded on the north by the Park.

In an important legal document defining the boundary of land leased to Burbage and others the full title of the adjoining landl would have been given. The Park would have been called the " Lord Bishop of Winchester's Park " if that Park had been intended, and it is most unlikely that it would have simply been referred to as the Park.

Again, the Lord Bishop of Winchester's Park lay to the south of Maiden Lane, and it could not therefore, under any circum- stances, have formed the northern boundary of Brand's land leased to Burbage.

MBS. STOPES, DB. MABTIN, and others appear to have fallen into the error of assuming an inaccuracy in the document ,. because they seem to have accepted without question that " the Park " must have referred to the Lord Bishop of Winchester's Park. The solution of this misconception may., I think, be gathered from an examination of that bundle of MS. documents known as the Sacramental Token Books in South- wark Cathedral. From these documents it