Purchase of a house in Blackfriars.
In the same year (1613), when on a short visit to London, Shakespeare invested a small sum of money in a new property. This was his last investment in real estate. He then purchased a house, the ground-floor of which was a haberdasher’s shop, with a yard attached. It was situated within six hundred feet of the Blackfriars Theatre—on the west side of St. Andrew’s Hill, formerly termed Puddle Hill or Puddle Dock Hill, in the near neighbourhood of what is now known as Ireland Yard. The former owner, Henry Walker, a musician, had bought the property for £100 in 1604. Shakespeare in 1613 agreed to pay him £140. The deeds of conveyance bear the date of March 10 in that year. [267] Next day, on March 11, Shakespeare executed another deed (now in the British Museum) which stipulated that £60 of the purchase-money was to remain on mortgage until the following Michaelmas. The money was unpaid at Shakespeare’s death. In both purchase-deed and mortgage-deed Shakespeare’s signature was witnessed by (among others) Henry Lawrence, ‘servant’ or clerk to Robert Andrewes, the scrivener who drew
the deeds, and Lawrence’s seal, bearing his initials ‘H. L.,’ was stamped in each case on the parchment-tag, across the head of which Shakespeare wrote his name. In all three documents—the two indentures and the mortgage-deed—Shakespeare is described as ‘of Stratford-on-Avon, in the Countie of Warwick, Gentleman.’ There is no reason to suppose that he acquired the house for his own residence. He at once leased the property to John Robinson, already a resident in the neighbourhood.
