The theatre that was taken apart overnight

Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, performed at a playhouse called the Theatre in Shoreditch, north of London. The building belonged to the Burbage family, but the land belonged to a landlord, Giles Allen, who refused to renew the lease.

The Burbages believed the lease let them take down the building. On 28 December 1598, while Allen was away for Christmas, the company and a carpenter named Peter Street came with workmen and dismantled the Theatre, timber by timber.

They stored the oak beams and later carried them across the river to Southwark, where they used them to build a new playhouse: the Globe. Shakespeare was one of its shareholders. Allen sued, but lost.

The Globe opened in 1599, possibly with Julius Caesar. Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth were all performed there. It burned down in 1613 when a cannon fired during a performance of Henry VIII set the thatched roof alight. A reconstruction opened near the original site in 1997.