LONDON, ENGLAND—BBC News reports that 144 timbers, postholes, and artifacts uncovered last year at a construction site in east London may be the remains of The Red Lion, an early Elizabethan outdoor stage with galleried seating whose exact location had been lost. John Brayne is thought to have built The Red Lion around 1567 on a medieval farmstead before he and James Burbage of The Lord Chamberlain’s Men built The Theatre, the first permanent home for acting troupes, in 1576. The existence of The Red Lion is only known through records of lawsuits initiated by John Brayne against the carpenters responsible for the construction of the playhouse in 1567 and 1569. Stephen White of University College London said the rectangular timber structure his team of researchers unearthed in Whitechapel matches the dimensions of The Red Lion recorded in the lawsuits. The postholes at the site, he added, may have supported galleried seating. Traces of other buildings at the site, including two beer cellars, and artifacts including beakers, bottles, and tankards, could have been part of The Red Lion Inn, which operated into the eighteenth century. To read about excavations of another of Elizabethan London's theaters, go to "Behind the Curtain."
