Shakespeare’s Southwark
Take a tour of Southwark today to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday.
Southwark was never part of the City of London. It was run by the Bishop of Winchester – and successive bishops seem to have decided to create an anarchic free-enterprise zone opposite the tightly regulated City. This paid them dividends – pleasure houses, theatres, bath houses (meaning roughly the same thing in Elizabethan London as in today’s San Francisco), bear baiting rings, and hundreds of taverns all paid rent to the enterprising bishops.
I must admit to a vested interest here – I’ve been researching Shakespeare’s Southwark for my own company, Podtours, …read more
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