St Olave Silver Street, London

Prior to the Second World War, there were still a few places left in the capital fit to qualify as "a genuine piece of Shakespearean London". One such place was the juncture of Silver and Muggle (or Monkwell) Streets in Cripplegate which has now all but vanished due to the heavy bombardment during the Blitz.

Back in 1604, Shakespeare used to live in Silver Street, lodging in the house of French Huguenot, Christopher Mountjoy, maker of tire (decorated headdress). It was in that house that Shakespeare wrote Othello and King Lear. Sadly, the house burned to the ground in the Great Fire of 1666 and the entire area was redeveloped after WW2. Silver Street was a short street and contained a church – St Olave’s – located almost opposite to the house where Shakespeare lived and which also perished in the Great Fire.

Nowadays, in a small square across London Wall Street (on the corner with Noble Street) there is a block of stone with a medieval skull and cross-bone carving, marking the graveyard of that church – the view Shakespeare probably would have had when he lodged with the Mountjoys in Silver Street.