The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-09-26

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 was just without the walls of the city of London, on the high north bank of the Thames and east of what is now called New Bridge street It included the little church of St. Anne's, numer- ous shops and dwellings, the splendid lconventural church, two hundred and twenty feet long by siXty-six feet wide, a ohurchyard on the north two hun dred feet by ninety-nine feet, the clois- ters on the south, comprised in a square of one hundred and ten feet, and to the west of these the little chapter house and large priory build ings, one of which, standing on the site of the present publishing office of the Times and opening on what is still called Playhouse Yard, became the Blackfriars Theatre in 1897. Soon af- ter Edward VI s accession he put this particular priory building to a new use He had all the apparel and furniture 1 for the revels and masques at court re- moved to it from Warwick Inn. Here also was the office of Sir Thomas Ca warden, the first master of the revels, who rehearsed in the great hall compa- nies of actors in masques and inter- ludes or plays chiefly for performance at court. After thus using the building for three years, King Edward VI. made Sir Thomas Cawarden a present of the entire Blacllfriars precincts not already given to other favorites-the two churches, the cloisters, the priory 1 houses, shops, residences and lands-by | letters patent dated at Westminster, March 12, 1850. Cararden proceeded to make changes in the precinct. One of l his first acts was to demolish the fine old conventual church as well as the little church of St. Annes. He seems to have planned to make his acquisi- tion the aristocratie residence quarter for nobles and lords. But apparently he made no material changes in this particular priory building besides using it for a few years for theatrical per formances, and later converting it nto residence flats.
 The site of the Blackfriars Priory l Theatre building is well known and easily reached. If you come down Fleet street, turn to the right at Lud- gate Circus and go down New Bridge street. Just before reaching Blackfri- ars Bridge turn left into Queen Victo- ria street. A few steps take you to Water Lane, along which runs the ele- vated Southeastern and Chatham rall- way. Go north on Water Lane seven ty-ffve paces and you reach at your right "Playhouse-yard' the name giv- en to the little passage to memory of BIackfriars Theatre. It is an irregu- lar way used by foot passengers,
 With a. width of about thirty feet, il runs east about ninety feet against a building which occupies probably the site of the old "Pipe Office adjoining l the entrance to the Times publishing office approximately the site of the north entrance to the Blackfriars The atre. Here the passage jogs to the left, runs with a width of about twelve fleet for a distance 0 ninety feet fur ther. when it again jogs off to the let and becomes Glasshouse Yard, so named from the glass factory that lstood here near the theatre. This in turn, a few steps further on, is contin- ted as Ireland Yard which was proba- bly, the north boundary of the property shakspere purchased here in ISIS, and takes it's name from William Ireland, who then occupied the house.
 Within the fifty years after Cawar- den's acquisition of the precinct, the immediate environs of the Blackfriars
 Theatre. then in the bloom of its youth
 had become one of the most aristocrat- ic residential distrcts. Henry Lord Hunsdown, the Queens chamberlain of the household had his mansion here. His son, Sir George Carey who, upon the death of his father in 15S6, suc- lceeded to the title of Lord Hunsdown, and in the following years became lord chamberlain, had his residence adjoin- 1 ing the south wall of the theatre. The gate to his mansion adjoined the south entrance to the theatre, and both opened out of the same passageWay. 1 Sir William More of Loosely owned a house in Playhouse Yard (then called Pipe Office Yard), almost opposite the l theatre on the north, It was occupied lby Lord Cobham, who, during a part of the first year of the theatres history, was lord chamberlain Elizabeth, Dowager Lady Russell, resided near. According to the petition of the inhab- Iitants of the Blaekfriars precincts in 1896 to stop the conversin of the priory Ibpilding into a theatre by James Bur bage, there were others of the nobility in the neighborhood The deed of Henry Walker to William Shakspere in 1613 shows that formerly John For tescue had lived in that house, and at present Henry Earl of NorthumberlanG occupied adjoining property. The Blackwells and the Bacons, families of
 wealth and position, lived near. The IChancery documents concerning Shak- spere and others in 1915 which I pub. Ilished last year as noted above, give the names of others, particularly Sir Thomas Bendish, Robert Dormer and Additional members of the Blackwell land Bacon families. Unpublished doc luments that I have come upon in the Guildhall archives indicate that most of the inhabitants of Blackfriars pre- cinct were not of the wealthy class The aristocratis part was limited prac- tically to the district ormerly occupied lby the cloisters, the pretentious priory buildings, and the demolished conven- tional church.
 The Blackfrlars Theatre stood in the midst of this aristocratic district. Ii was q much more pretentious structure than usually supposed. The fact that
 James Burbage (who purchased the
 house, February4, 1896, of Thomas Ca, warden's executor; Sir William More 1 nf [ nsel,.A maid six hnndred nn1lnde fnl