Exhibition: Shakespeare’s Deed

2016 marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. To commemorate the quarter-centenary anniversary, the City of London Heritage Gallery is delighted to display its “Shakespeare Deed,” containing one of only six “authenticated” examples of Shakespeare’s signature.

The deed is for a property in the City of London near Blackfriars. On 10 March 1613, Shakespeare bought the property from Henry Walker, ‘citizen and minstrel (musician)’ for £140. It was later bought at an auction in 1843 by the City of London Corporation for £145. The house’s exact location is unknown, although it is believed to have abutted on the street now known as St. Andrew’s Hill. It was eventually destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666.

The property is particularly significant because – although Shakespeare owned property in Stratford – it is the only property he is known to have owned in London. Given its convenient proximity to the Blackfriars Playhouse and The Globe, Shakespeare may have intended to make it his home, yet no evidence suggests he lived there in the four years prior to his death in 1616.