Globe Street

Globe Street is a short lane tucked into The Borough, Southwark’s medieval commercial heart. Today it remains largely residential, its name the only visible echo of the neighbourhood’s most famous landmark. The street sits mere yards from the site where Park Street now crosses the former grounds of the original Globe Playhouse.

2008

New Globe Walk

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

2010

Globe Street, Southwark

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

2010

THE GLOBE, Southwark (02)

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Today

Point no-entry, Globe Street

Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0

What makes this corner of London distinctive is not its physical character but its historical weight. The Borough has never lost touch with the Elizabethan era that made it famous. Even quiet lanes like this one carry the memory of an age when London’s entire theatrical world stood south of the Thames. But where exactly does the name come from?

The origin of the name Globe Street is not recorded in available historical sources.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Southwark continued to thrive. The London councillors were puritans who disapproved of plays so theatres were built in Southwark. The Rose Theatre was built in 1592 and the Globe was built in 1599. This shift transformed the Borough from a market suburb into an entertainment destination that rivalled the City itself. The material was ferried over the Thames to reconstruct it as The Globe on some marshy gardens to the south of Maiden Lane, Southwark.

It was pulled down in 1644–45 to make room for tenements. The playhouses that once defined Southwark’s identity were demolished or closed. By the Georgian and Victorian eras, the theatre district had given way to warehouses, markets, and modest residential streets. The names that survive—including Globe Street itself—are the chief memorials to what was lost.

Globe Street exists in the shadow of a reconstruction. A modern reconstruction of the theatre, named "Shakespeare's Globe", opened in 1997, with a production of Henry V. The contemporary playhouse, built approximately 230 metres from the original site, has revitalised interest in the Borough’s theatrical heritage and draws thousands of visitors annually. Yet the street itself contains no plaques, no museums, no visible markers of its nameake.

The street’s modest present-day character masks its historical significance. Within a short walk lie fragments of palace gardens, former prison sites, and archaeological layers recording centuries of London life. Globe Street itself is less a destination than a passage through this dense historical landscape, yet its name encapsulates an entire age.

Today, Globe Street is a working quarter of The Borough rather than a tourist destination. It remains primarily residential, lined with period properties from the 18th and 19th centuries. The street gives little away; few passersby pause to consider why a short lane in Southwark carries the name of the world’s most famous Renaissance playhouse.

Yet the historical weight is undeniable. To walk this lane is to cross ground that once held the hopes of playwrights, actors, and groundlings. From the 15th century on, Southwark was known for its inns, theatres, spas, country resorts, and other places of entertainment and recreation. Among the borough’s many noteworthy early theatres was Bankside’s Globe Theatre, where many of William Shakespeare’s plays were first produced. The name persists as a thread connecting modern Southwark to that vanished world.