Exact location of Shakespeares missing home finally discovered

To be or not to be? That may be the only question left, as a longstanding Shakespearean mystery is now solved. Curiosities about the exact location of the unparalleled playwright’s “missing” London home have persisted for centuries, forcing fans and researchers alike to give up the hunt. But Lucy Munro, a professor of Shakespeare and Early Modern Literature at King’s College London, has just officially cracked the code on pinpointing The Bard’s abode. “I was doing research as part of a wider project and couldn’t believe it when I realized what I was looking at,” Munro said in a statement, “the floorplan of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars house.”The expert unearthed three documents — two from the London Archives and one from the National Archives — offering detailed information on the site and size of the property, which Shakespeare purchased in 1613. Prior to Munro’s findings, academics reportedly believed that the home in Blackfriars — located in central London — was part of “the Great Gate” over the entrance to the Blackfriars precinct, a major 13th-century Dominican friary. For years, a blue plaque honoring Shakespeare — mounted to a building at 5 St.Andrew’s Hill, a historic street in Blackfriars — has read that the “Romeo & Juliet” author’s residence was merely “near” the landmark. However, one of the docs Munro’s just uncovered features partial blueprints of the Blackfriars precinct, drawn up in 1668, two years after the Great Fire of London, confirming that Shakespeare’s lodging stood in the exact spot of the precinct rather than in close proximity to it. The part of the property that spanned the gate did not appear in the post-fire plan because it had no foundation.

But the other part measured 45 feet from east to west — 15 feet from north to south at the eastern end, and 13 feet at the western end, per the King’s College London report. The plan doesn’t indicate its internal layout or room...