Globe

The first Globe, built by James Burbage’s sons and a partnership of players, including William Shakespeare, was in direct descent from the Theatre (q.v.). The timbers of the Shoreditch house were shipped from Shoreditch and re-erected on Bankside. Shakespeare’s major tragedies were written for and performed in the Globe, a polygonal, timber-framed and thatch-roofed structure with an open yard, tiers of galleries, a tiring house and apron stage with an elaborate canopy or ‘shadow’. From 1608 to 1642 the company also occupied Burbage’s (indoor) Blackfriars Theatre, an experience which must have had a powerful influence on playing and production methods in both houses.

In 1613 a fire broke out as a result from smouldering tampin (or stoppel) from a cannon routinely discharged during a performance of Henry VIII. It lodged in the thatch and the theatre was destroyed, happily without loss of life. The second Globe, built with Royal patronage, rose off the foundations of the first, but almost certainly represented a major advance in design terms.

Apart from Hollar’s 1647 ‘Long View’ (and a number of less reliable records) little was known of the precise form and dimensions of the Globe until a limited excavation took place in 1989. It is reasonably certain that substantial physical evidence remains buried beneath Anchor Terrace and possibly under Southwark Bridge Road.

The modern reconstruction of the Shakespeare Globe is described elsewhere (Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, q.v.).