Take A Grand Tour Of William Shakespeare’s London

0 Comments | 12 Sep 2023

There are many great cultural treasures you can encounter on a luxury private tour of London, featuring architecture, royal history, Roman remains and the places famous people lived and worked. But for literature, William Shakespeare stands head and shoulders above the rest.

The famous playwright was not a native Londoner, hailing from the town of Stratford-on-Avon in the Midlands (not to be confused with Stratford in east London). But he did spend a large part of his 52 years in the capital, living there from around 1585 to 1612.

During this time, the Globe Theatre was established (1599) and this is a must-see element of your tour. The current Shakespeare’s Globe is a replica of the original, standing around 230 metres away from the original on the south bank of the Thames in Southwark.

This autumn will see several famous Shakespeare plays being performed, including As You Like It, Macbeth and Twelfth Night. But you can also enjoy the walk-through Shakespeare’s Globe Story and Tour, which traces the history of the original theatre, how it coped with the plague and the tale of the construction of the modern theatre in the 1990s.

While the Globe is the obvious place to start when enjoying Shakespeare’s London, there are other places to see as well.

Splitting his time between London and Stratford, Shakespeare never actually owned any of the homes he lived in during his time working in the capital. There are four places he definitely lived in the capital, including near the Clink (a famous prison), adjacent to the land the first Globe was built on.

He also lived in the City of London, on Bishopsgate, on Silver Street near St Paul’s (a street that no longer exists after being destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666) and at Blackfriars, where the Cockpit pub stands on the site of his old home. So if you want to go in for a drink, be sure to raise a toast to the bard!