the Bear Garden

The Bear Garden and Hope Theatre, Southwark, erected by Philip Henslowe on the site of a previous bear garden after the Globe Theatre burned down in 1613. Like the Rose and the Swan nearby, it was a polygonal wooden building with tiered galleries. Its movable stage allowed for bull- and bear-baiting as well as plays. Ben Jonson's play Bartholomew Fair premiered at the Hope on October 31, 1614. By the 1620s bear-baiting was the dominant entertainment here, as leading acting companies largely avoided the theatre. Other entertainment included prize fights, fencing matches, and exhibitions of wild animals. The building was torn down and the bears shot in 1656.

The Bear Garden was rebuilt a short distance to the south during the Restoration.

Bear Garden, Bankside, Southwark, a royal garden or amphitheatre for the exhibition of bear and bull baitings; a favourite amusement with the people of England till late in the reign of William III. There was a garden here from a very early date, and Mr. Rendle mentions that in 1586 "Morgan Pope agrees to pay unto ye parish for the bear garden and for the ground adjoining to the same where the dogs are 6s. 8d. at Christmas next; and so on after 6s. 8d. by the year for tithes."—Harrison's England, pt 2, ed. Furnivall (New Shakspere Society). The Tudors and Stuarts enjoyed the sport, and generally introduced a new ambassador to the Bear Garden as soon as the first audience was over. Froude relates that Elizabeth invited the Spanish Ambassador to the Bear Garden when "Europe was ringing with the first intelligence of Drake's exploits in the Pacific," in the hope that she might be able, during the intervals of the engrossing sport, to wheedle out of him the secret of what Philip II. really thought on the subject.¹ One of the bears of this time, Shakerton, has found enduring celebrity in Shakespeare; and the last Master of importance was Edward Alleyn, the actor, and founder of Dulwich College. It appears from an epigram of Crowley, the printer, that Sunday, in the reign of Henry VIII., was the favourite day of exhibition,² and from a letter of Henslowe to Alleyn, that this custom, "which was the cheffest meanes and benyfite to the place," continued till the reign of James I.³ Stow does not mention the Bear Garden in the first edition of his Survey (1598), but in the second edition (1603) he says the baiting of bulls and bears is much frequented, "namely in Bear Gardens, on the Bank's side, wherein be prepared scaffolds for beholders to stand upon." Further on he says "there be two Bear Gardens, the Old and New Places."

In 1583 one of the amphitheatres fell down, during a Sunday performance, killing some of the audience. As Stow says, "a friendly warning to such as more delight in the cruelties of beastes than in the works of mercy, which ought to be the Sabbath day's exercise."—Annales.

There is still another place built in the form of a theatre, which serves for the baiting of bulls and bears. They are fastened behind, and then worried by great English bull-dogs; but not without great risque to the dogs, from the horns of the one and the teeth of the other; and it sometimes happens they are killed upon the spot. Fresh ones are immediately supplied in the place of those that are wounded or tired. To this entertainment there often follows that of whipping a blinded bear, which is performed by five or six men, standing circularly with whips, which they exercise upon him without any mercy, as he cannot escape from them because of his chain. He defends himself with all his force and skill, throwing down all who come within his reach, and are not active enough to get out of it, and tearing the whips out of their hands and breaking them. At these spectacles and everywhere else, the English are constantly smoking tobacco.... In these theatres fruits, such as apples, pears, and nuts, according to their season, are carried about to be sold, as well as ale and wine.—Hentzner's Travels, A.D. 1590.

The White Bull at the Beare-garden, who tosseth up dogges like tennis balles and catching them againe upon his horns, makes them gaiter their legges with their owne guts.—A New Booke of Mistakes, 1637, quoted in Huth's Prefaces, Dedications, and Epistles, p. 358.

February, 1655. Colonel Pride, now Sir Thomas Pride, by reason of some difference between him and the Keeper Godfrey of the Beares in the Bear Garden in Southwark, as a Justice of Peace, then caused all the beares to be fast tyed up by the noses, and then valiantly brought some files of musketeers, drew up, and gave fyre; and kil'd six or more beares in the Place (only leaving one white innocent cubb), and also cockes of the game. It is said all the mastives are to be shipt for Jamaica.—Townsend's Annals, MS., p. 285; Prattenton's Coll., Soc. of Antiq.

The Hope on the Bank's side in Southwarke, commonly called the Beare Garden, a play house for Stage Playes on Mundayes, Wedensdayes, Fridayes, and Saterdayes; and for the Baiting of the Beares on Tuesdayes and Thursdayes, the stage being made to take up and downe when they please. It was built in the year 1610, and now pulled downe to make tennementes by Thomas Walker, a petticoate maker in Cannon Streete, on Tuesday the 25 day of March, 1656. Seven of Mr. Godfries beares, by the command of Thomas Pride, then hie Sheriefe of Surry, were then shot to death on Saterday the 9 day of February 1655 by a company of Souldiers.—Notes on London Churches and Buildings, A.D. 1631–1658; Harrison's England, vol. ii. (New Shakspere Society).

Pepys went often to the Bear Garden, and sometimes took his wife there; and even the sage and serious Evelyn went with some friends and stayed to the end, though he got "most heartily weary of the rude and dirty pastime."

August 14, 1666. After dinner with my wife and Mercer to the Beare-garden; where I have not been I think of many years, and saw some good sport of the bulls tossing of the dogs: one into the very boxes. But it is a very rude and nasty pleasure. We had a great many hectors in the same box with us, and one very fine went into the pit and played his dog for a wager, which was strange sport for a gentleman.—Pepys.

May 27, 1667.—Abroad, and stopped at Bear Garden Stairs, there to see a prize fought. But the house so full there was no getting in there, so forced to go through an ale-house into the pit, where the bears are baited; and upon a stool did see them fight, which they did very furiously, a butcher and a waterman. The former had the better all along, till, by and by, the latter dropped his sword out of his hand, and the butcher, whether not seeing his sword dropped I know not, but did give him a cut over the wrist, so as he was disabled to fight any longer. But Lord! to see how in a minute the whole stage was full of watermen to revenge the foul play, and the butchers to defend their fellow, though most blamed him; and there they all fell to it, to knocking down and cutting many on each side. It was pleasant to see, but that I stood in the pit, and feared that in the tumult I might get some hurt. At last the battle broke up, and so I away.—Pepys. See also September 9, 1667, and April 12, 1669.

June 16, 1670.—I went with some friends to the Bear Garden, where was cock-fighting, dog-fighting, beare and bull baiting, it being a famous day for all these butcherly sports, or rather barbarous cruelties. The bulls did exceedingly well, but the Irish woolfe-dog exceeded, which was a tall greyhound, a stately creature indeed, who beat a cruel mastif. One of the bulls tossed a dog full into a lady's lap, as she sate in one of the boxes at a considerable height from the arena. Two poor dogs were killed: and so all ended with the ape on horseback, and I most heartily weary of the rude and dirty pastime, which I had not seen I think in twenty years before. Evelyn, Diary.

Bold Britons, at a brave Bear-garden Fray,
Are rouz'd: and, clatt'ring Sticks, cry Play, Play, Play.
Mean time, your filthy Foreigner will stare,
And mutter to himself, Ha! gens barbare!
And, Gad, 'tis well he mutters; well for him;
Our Butchers else would tear him limb from limb.—

Dryden, Epilogue to Aurengzebe, 1670.

Among the Additional MSS. in the British Museum¹ is a warrant of Lord Arlington's, dated March 28, 1676, for the payment of £10 "to James Davies, Esq., master of His Majesty's Bears, Bulls, and Dogs, for making ready the roomes at the Bear Garden and Bayteing the Beares before the Spanish Ambassadors, the 7 January last, 1675." From the Works Accounts of the Crown for 1628–1629 there appears to have been a "Bear Stake Gallery" at Whitehall in the reign of Charles I. In William III.'s reign this species of amusement was removed to Hockley-in-the-Hole, "as more convenient for the butchers and such like," then the chief patrons of this once royal amusement. [See Paris Garden; Hockley-in-the-Hole.]

Mr. Rendle says that there were at least four Bear Gardens—two amphitheatres shown on the Agas Map (called respectively the Bull Baiting and the Bear Baiting), another at the north end of the Bear Garden Lane so called, leading from Maid Lane to the river, and one the Hope used also as a play-house, at the south end of the same lane.

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¹ History of England, vol. xi. p. 389.
² Strype, B. iv, p. 6.
³ Collier's Life of Alleyn, p. 75.

¹ No. 5750.

The Bear Gardens and The Hope Theatre. The first specific reference that has been found to bear-baiting on Bankside is in an order of Henry VIII dated 13th April, 1546, to the Mayor and Sheriffs of London, to proclaim the abolition of the Stews on Bankside and of bear-baiting "in that row or in any place on that side London bridge."⁴ Notwithstanding this proclamation Thomas Fluddie, Yeoman of His Majesty's Bears, was granted a licence in September, 1546, to "make pastime" with the king's bears "at the accustomed place at London, called the Stewes."⁴ The Stews were roughly coincident with the thoroughfare known as Bankside, but they did not extend into Paris Garden Manor. The records quoted below show that from 1550 onward the Bear Gardens were in the liberty of the Clink, i.e. near the site of the Stews, and it is difficult to account for the fact that literary allusions to bear-baiting nearly always link it with Paris Garden. Robert Crowley in 1550 speaks—

                                          "Of Bearbaytynge.
What follye is thys, to kepe wyth daunger,
A greate mastyfe dogge and a foule ouglye beare;
And to thys onelye ende, to se them two fyght,
Wyth terrible tearynge, a full ouglye syght.
And yet me thynke those men be mooste foles of all,
Whose store of money is but verye smale,
And yet euerye Sondaye they will surelye spende
One penye or two, the bearwardes lyuyng to mende.
At Paryse Garden eche Sundaye, a man shall not fayle
To fynde two or three hundredes, for the bearwardes vaile."¹³⁹

In a preface to a sermon preached by John Bradford before Edward VI Thomas Sampson refers to God's judgment on "certayne Gentlemen upon the Sabboth day, going in a whirry to Paris garden to the Beare bayting" who were drowned,¹⁴⁰ and from 1559 onwards references become fairly frequent.

An extensive search of the records has revealed no evidence of bearbaiting taking place within Paris Garden Manor, but it is possible that bears were baited in the gaming establishment run by William Baseley at the manor house of Paris Garden (see p. 96) though no written evidence of this has been found. It is likely that the association of "Paris Garden" with the Bear Gardens is a simple transference of name through its use in colloquial speech. Men had grown accustomed to crossing the river to Paris Garden Stairs to take their pleasure in Paris Garden. Later they used the same route but turned east instead of west, and they probably continued to speak of "going to Paris Garden."^a1 In support of this theory it may be noted that in the Token Books for the years 1613–18 the heading "Paris Garden" is inserted before the name of "Mr. Jacob of the beare garden" and "Mr. Edward Allen," in the part of the books relating to the area between Rose Alley and Mosses Alley, i.e. near the site of the alley now known as Bear Gardens. This provides an explanation for the references in the Dulwich College manuscripts to Edward Alleyn and Philip Henslowe at Paris Garden, and is probably the result of the linking of the name Paris Garden with bear-baiting in popular parlance.

In the year 1620 a dispute arose between the Crown and the Bishop of Winchester as to the ownership of the ground in the neighbourhood of the Bear Gardens. The evidence¹⁴² runs into many pages and is frequently contradictory, but it clearly shows that the bear-baiting rings had been moved several times and that the "Bear Gardens" had by that date become a generic term covering the sheds and kennels in which the bears, bulls and dogs were kept, as well as the actual rings and the adjoining houses, most of which were occupied by persons having some connection with the Bear Gardens.

Apart from one statement about baiting near Mason's Stairs^b1 which cannot be confirmed from other sources, all the witnesses agreed that the Bear Gardens were either on part of the Bishop of Winchester's land leased in 1540 to William Payne and formerly known as the Barge, Bell and Cock, or on the King's land leased in 1552 to Henry Polsted and formerly known as the Unicorn and the Rose (see Plate 59). The deeds of the Polsted property have been traced back to the 14th century^c1 but the first reference to a Bear Garden occurs in the lease of 1552 which included "a capital curtilage called le Beare yarde with le Berehouse and a garden" held by John Allen at a rent of £8 a year.¹⁴⁵ As noted above the first literary allusion to bear-baiting on Bankside occurs in 1550 and the inference is that it had been recently introduced at that time. It seems certain that either William Payne, who died in 1575,¹⁴⁶ or his son John, built a bear-baiting ring on the land leased from the Bishop of Winchester and that both this ring and the older one farther south were in use for a time. Stow, describing Bankside in 1598, says: "there be the two Beare-gardens, the old and new places wherein be kept Beares, Bulles, and other beastes, to be bayted. As also Mastiues in seuerall kenels are there nourished to bait them. These Beares ... are ... bayted in plottes of grounde, scaffolded about for the beholders to stand safe."²⁶ A conventionalised view of two rings (one marked "The bolle bayting" and the other "The Bearebayting") and of the dogs ready to leap from their kennels can be seen in the part of the Agas map [date c. 1560] reproduced here, but it is possible that the more easterly of these represents an unrecorded ring on the site of the Rose Theatre. In 1583 "the old and underpropped scaffolds round about the beare garden ... overcharged with people fell suddenlie downe, whereby to the number of eight persons men and women were slaine, and manie other sore hurt and brused."¹⁴⁷

Morgan Pope, goldsmith, obtained an exemplification of the grant of the mastership of the Game of Bears in 1585,¹⁴⁸ and in 1586 he was paying tithes for the Bear Garden.¹⁶ Thomas Burnaby bought a lease of the Bear Garden on the Bishop of Winchester's property in 1590 and promptly let it to Richard Reve for a yearly rent of £120 under the description of,¹⁴⁹ "All that Tenemente whearein one John Napton deceased did latelie inhabyte ... on the Banke syde ... Togeather Wth the Beare garden and the Scaffoldes houses game and dogges and all other thinges thereunto apperteyninge ... excepting such fees as shal be ... payable to the maister of the said game."^a2 The schedule of stock included three bulls, nine bears, a horse and an ape.

In 1592 Edward Alleyn, who later founded Dulwich College and who was already a well-known actor, married Joan Woodward, stepdaughter of Philip Henslowe, manager of the Rose Playhouse,⁹⁰ and the two men began a profitable business connection. In 1594 Alleyn bought Burnaby's interest in the Bear Garden for £200,¹⁵¹ and in 1596 Henslowe acquired a lease of part of the Polsted property. Henslowe and Alleyn tried to get the office of Master of the Royal Game of Bulls and Bears on the death of Ralph Bowes in 1598, but had to be content with the deputyship under John Dorrington. They were, however, more successful in 1604 when they obtained a grant from James I of the "Office of Cheefe Master, Overseer and Ruler of our beares, Bulls and mastiffe dogges."¹⁵¹ Having thus consolidated their position Alleyn and Henslowe started to develop their property. In 1606 they contracted with Peter Streete, carpenter, for £65, to pull down "so much of the tymber or carpenters worke of the foreside of the messuage ... called the beare garden, next the river of Thames ... as conteyneth in lengthe from outside to outside fyftye and sixe foote ... and in bredth from outside to outside sixeteene foote" ... and to rebuild the same with "good new sufficient and sounde tymber of oke."⁷⁹ From the detailed specification it appears that it was the entrance gate and outbuildings of the Bear Garden which were rebuilt at this time,¹⁵² but in 1613 the baiting place itself was demolished and Gilbert Katherens, carpenter, undertook for the sum of £360 to build⁷⁹ "one other game place or plaiehouse fitt and convenient in all thinges bothe for players to plaie in and for the game of Beares and bulls to be bayted in the same, and also a fitt and convenient tyre house and a stage to be carryed or taken awaie and to stand uppon tressels" the whole to be "of suche large compasse, fforme, widenes and height as the plaie housse called the Swan in the libertie of Parris garden." The new theatre, the Hope, was slightly more substantial than the Rose, as part of it was of brick, the brickwork being put in by a sub-contractor, John Browne, bricklayer, at a cost of £80.⁷⁹ The contract with Katherens was made in August and it is probable that Henslowe seized the opportunity given him by the destruction of the Globe Playhouse by fire on 29th June, 1613, to establish another playhouse on Bankside. Philip Henslowe and Jacob Meade, waterman, raised a company of players under the leadership of Nathan Field, and in 1614 they acted Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair at the Hope.

In the time of Elizabeth bear-baiting had been a sport for Sunday afternoons, but the Sunday performances were stopped early in the reign of James I. After the building of the Hope it was used for bear and bull-baiting on Mondays, and for plays during the rest of the week. Plays began at 3 p.m., and the players seem to have been paid by receiving a share of the takings.^a3,153

Among the witnesses called during the dispute of 1620 was John Browne (aged 29), who was presumably the bricklayer employed on the Hope. He stated that "there was a sinke or open gutter for the use ... of the beare garden on the West side of the old beare garden running southward which is now stopped vpp and that the old dogg Kennells were more westward beyond the same and that the now new playhouse is in part built vppon the said sinke and where the old dogg Kennell stood." He also stated that Henslowe started to lay the foundation of the playhouse on part of the old Bear Garden but that on Edward Alleyn's persuasion he moved it southward a few feet so that it should be wholly on the king's land.¹⁴² It would appear, therefore, that the Hope stood just south of the Bishop of Winchester's ground on the site marked on the plan on Plate 59.^b3 It was pulled down during the Civil War.

A pothouse and glasshouse had been built on the site by 1671 when John Squibb, the then owner of the Polsted property, leased this portion of it to William Lillingston and others.¹⁵⁵ More glasshouses, i.e. glass-blowing workshops, were erected there by John Bowles at the end of the 17th century. In 1776 a smith's shop and foundry had replaced the glasshouses. The site is now occupied by the premises of Beck & Pollitzer.

In 1662 James Davies, who had held the office of "Master of ... [the] Games of Beares, Bulls, etc.," under Charles I petitioned that it might be restored to him, and stated that he and his father had laid out £2,000 in rebuilding the Bear Gardens on Bankside.¹⁵⁶ They were successful in their application and there are a number of allusions to bear-baiting on Bankside in the diaries of Evelyn and Pepys. The last reference that has been found is in an advertisement published in The Loyal Protestant for 1682.

The Bear Gardens of Charles II's reign were south of Henslowe's. The site is marked on the map of Morden and Lea (1682) and on the map in the 1755 edition of Strype's Stow. It seems probable that the small square into which the narrow alley now known as Bear Gardens opens, about twenty yards north of Maid Lane, marks approximately the site of the last bearbaiting ring.^a4

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^a1 Such a transference of name is not unusual. In recent years the Arsenal Station at Highbury, has acquired its name because crowds use it on their way to see football played by a team which was originally associated with Woolwich Arsenal. Mr. Kingsford makes the alternative suggestion that the confusion may have arisen because Sir Richard Longe "Master of the game of bears" to Henry VIII, was also steward of the Manor of Paris Garden when it was in the hands of the Crown after 1536.^141
b1 John Taylor, aged 77, deposed: "that he remembreth that the game of bearebayting hath been kept in fower severall places (vizt) at Mason Steares on the bankside, neere Maidlane by the Corner of the Pykegarden, and at the beare garden wch was parcell of the possession of William Payne and the place where they are now kept." Mason's Stairs are still in existence opposite the end of White Hind Alley (see Plate 59). There is no reference to a Bear Garden in the deeds relating to the Great Pike Garden and the land in the neighbourhood, unless the "howse called a Beare howse" said to be "late in the Tenure of ... Gilbert Rockett thelder" and mentioned in the litigation over this property in 1604 can be so construed.¹⁴³ It is most probable, however, that a "beer" house, not a "bear" house, is meant.

^c1 The Polsted property comprised the possessions of the priory of the nuns of Stratford at Bow on Bankside, including the Unicorn and the King's Pike Garden and the tenement called the Rose. The latter had been sold by William Spence to Henry Polsted in 1537 under the description of "all that his Tenement and gardens sometyme called The Rose, set and being vpon the Stewes banke ... That is to saye bitwene the Tenement and garden of Raff Symonds [known as the little Rose, the ground on which the Rose Theatre later stood] ... of the East parte, and the tenement called the Barge and the garden late belonging to [the] priores of Stratford on the West parte, and dothe extende from the water of Thamys ayenst the Northe vnto Mayden lane on the South parte."^144
a2 A man called Wistow is stated in the evidence given in 1620 to have succeeded Payne as deputy master of the "Game of Beares." We know that Robert Wystowe held a "beare yerde" from Alice Polsted, widow of Henry Polsted, in 1559;150 but in a manuscript list of deeds belonging to Edward Alleyn concerning the Bear Garden there is also mention of a ratification from Joan Payne to "Wistoe" and of "Wistoes sale to Napton of Paynes lease."⁹⁰ It would seem, therefore, that Wistow was a tenant of both Bear Gardens and that the Bear Garden of which Thomas Burnaby was lessee, and which had previously been in the tenure of John Napton, was on the ground leased by the Bishop of Winchester to William Payne, i.e., the Barge, Bell and Cock.

^a3 Later less time was given to plays. A manuscript continuation of Stow's Annales' contains this account of the theatre "The Hope on the Bankside in Southwarke, commonly called the Beare Garden, a playhouse for stage-playes on Mondayes, Wednesdayes, Fridayes, and Saterdayes; and for the Baiting of the Beares on Tuesdayes and Thursdayes, the stage being made to take up and downe when they please. It was built in the year 1610 and now pulled downe to make tennements by Thomas Walker, a petticoate maker in Cannon Streete, on Tuesday, the 25 day of March, 1656. Seven of Mr. Godfries beares, by the command of Thomas Pride, then hie Sheriefe of Surry, were then shot to death, on Saterday, the 9 day of February, 1655, by a Company of Souldiers."¹⁵⁴ Bearbaiting had been suppressed by the House of Commons in 1642.

^b3 The bishop's land is shown on the plan as it was when it was sold by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1866 but there is no reason to think that it had varied in extent since the 16th century.

^a4 The last "Bear Garden" was also on the Polsted property which had been granted to Richard Sydenham by Charles I and sold by his heir, Sir Edward Sydenham to John Squibb. By a long series of transactions recited in a deed of 19th November, 1776, between John Stevens and others,¹⁵⁷ the property came into the hands of George Birch and John Mander. The deed contains a full description of the development of the property. It shows that by 1693 the site of the last Bear Garden was being used for glasshouses and that in 1776 it was known as Glasshouse Square.

⁴ Cal. of L. and P., Henry VIII.

¹⁶ Vestry Minute Books of St. Saviour's.

²⁶ Stow's Survey of London, 1st ed., 1598.

⁷⁹ Cat. of the Manuscripts and Muniments of Alleyn's College of God's Gift at Dulwich, by Geo. F. Warner, 1881.

⁹⁰ W. Young, History of Dulwich College, II.

¹²⁹ L.C.C. Min. of Surr. and Kent Sewers Com.

¹³⁹ E.E.T.S. Extra Series XV. Select works of R. Crowley, p. 16.

¹⁴⁰ Two notable sermons by John Bradford: Preface by Thos. Sampson.

¹⁴¹ Article on "Paris Garden and the Bearbaiting," by C. L. Kingsford in Archaeologia, vol. 70.

¹⁴² P.R.O., E/134, 18 Jas. I, Mich. 10.

¹⁴³ P.R.O., C 2, Jas. I, S.I./39.

¹⁴⁴ P.R.O., Anc. Deed E 326/12364.

¹⁴⁵ P.R.O., L.R. 2, 190 f. 98.

¹⁴⁶ P.R.O., Req. 2/cviii/5.

¹⁴⁷ Holinshed's Chronicle, 1587 ed., vol. III, p. 1353.

¹⁴⁸ T. F. Ordish, Early London Theatres, 1894.

¹⁴⁹ P.R.O., Anc. Deed C 146/8581.

¹⁵¹ Henslowe's Papers, ed. W. W. Greg.

¹⁵² Article by W. J. Lawrence and W. H. Godfrey in the Architectural Review, vol. XLVII, June, 1920. Conjectural plans and elevations of the building are given.

¹⁵³ Ed. Malone, The plays and poems of William Shakespeare, 1821, vol. XXI.

¹⁵⁴ E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, vol. II.

¹⁵⁵ P.R.O., CP 43/833.

¹⁵⁶ P.R.O., S.P. 29/448/36.

¹⁵⁷ P.R.O., CP 43/776.