Conservation Work Reveals Medieval Doorway Perhaps Used by Shakespeare

NORFOLK, ENGLAND—According to a report in The Guardian, an archway was discovered during conservation work in St. George’s Guildhall, a medieval guildhall in the town of King’s Lynn that was later used as a theater. It had been covered by two layers of plasterboard and sealed with a brick wall erected in the eighteenth century. The archway supports a medieval roof, and has therefore been dated to before 1405. “We’ve got a door that would definitely have been here in the years we think Shakespeare played here and, in all likelihood, was the door to a room where the players changed and stored props,” said creative director Tim FitzHigham. This room, called the guild robing room, was originally used by guild members to dress before feasting on the building’s upper floor. When guilds stopped using the hall for meetings, the space was used a theater, and the guild robing room became a room used by visiting actors to change into their costumes. Shakespeare and the touring theater group known as Queen Elizabeth’s Men are thought to have performed at the site while on tour in King’s Lynn in 1592–1593, when London’s theaters were closed due to an outbreak of the plague. To read about a fifteenth-century wooden stage that was discovered in the guildhall in 2023, go to "Around the World: England."