Rose Alley

Rose Alley. Extending north from Maiden Lane to the Rose Play House, in Southwark.

Rose Alley, hath a narrow Passage at the entrance, with Houses only on one side, which are indifferent good; and gives a Passage out of Maiden Lane.

Rose alley, Bank side, Southwark. ✽

Rose Alley, Bankside, Southwark,—the fourth on the L. from Clink-st. or from Bank-end, leading into Maid-lane.

[Rose Alley]. In the vestry of the parish of St. Mildred, Bread Street, is a plan of the Rose estate, to which parish it belongs, given for charitable purposes by Thomasyn Symonds in 1553.² Here was the site of the Rose playhouse,³ close by the southern end of Southwark Bridge. Rose Alley is shown in the Ordnance map of to-day, still identifying the spot even in name. The estate becomes Henslowe's about 1584, and he entering into partnership with Cholmley, they build the Rose theatre in 1592. The latter finds most of the money. He is 'to hold and occupy a small tenement or dwelling-house in Maiden Lane or Rose Alley at the end of the ground, for the purpose of keeping victualling in or to put to any other use'—in other words, he was to build a playhouse tap; the Rose, like the Globe, requiring its place of refreshment. Human nature is the same; a run out between the acts is a matter of course,—then, for a little beer or wine, now, I am reminded, for brandy and soda, and the owners must be allowed to make profit out of the fictitious thirst. It is reasonably thought that this place was hinted at in Sidney's Arcadia, his ideal spot for a playhouse: 'Set in a place of roses, all the rest flourishing green, the roses adding such a ruddy show to it as though the field were bashful at its own beauty, and about it, as if made to enclose a theatre, grew such trees.'It is likely that Sir Philip Sidney knew the place well, his intimate friend Sir Edward Dyer living within sight of the Rose, where in truth there had been a veritable rose garden of some extent not many years before. In a Survey of 1547 Edward VI., we learn that it paid £1 : 3 : 4 by the year, the messuage attached to it called the Rose paying £4. Later, curiously enough, this very ground became notorious for foul smells. 'Sweet as the Rose that grows by the Bear Garden,' is Decker's irony when alluding to it; 'Stinks all stinks exceeding,' are Ben Jonson's plain words.

As early as Edward IV.'s reign, namely in 1474, the Roose, with the Bole already noticed, had been left by Robert Colyns, cofferer of London, 'for almesse dedes, for the soul of said Robert and all Christian souls.' It appears that the executor of the will, John Skyrwith, Leatherseller, desiring to make the estate his own, neglected his trust, and so the aid of the Chancellor is sought, to the end 'that the will may be truly carried out.' Another like bequest I note, showing the custom of the time, and that 'anything was fish that came to the net.' Roger Fitz, a repentant man of violence of Lewisham, makes his will in 1504, and leaves the Lion and the Ram, Ram Alley probably, of the Stews, Southwark, 'to be sold to purchase as much as will be sufficient to obtain a chanting priest, to sing for me and my friends in the church of our Lady at Lewisham, and in my chapell at Lewisham' (Rushey Green).

A "Bell" is one of the Stew houses referred to by Stow, and in 1626 is mentioned in Alleyn's will, he leaving a considerable sum secured on four houses here at hand, the Unicorn, Bell, Barge, and Cock, all which had been Philip Henslowe's, and were now his. The surroundings of the four were 'the King's highway next the Thames, N.; the Rose tenement, by site of playhouse, E.; a tenement of Lady Stratford's and Maid Lane, S.' The population of the neighbourhood was, it seems, a very mixed one.

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² Close Roll, 6 Edward VI. A deed in trust, for herself for life and to the parish after.
³ Mr. Halliwell Phillipps says, 'The earliest legitimate theatre on the south (of the Thames) was the Rose, the erection of which was contemplated in the year 1587; but it would seem from Henslowe's Diary that the building was not opened till early in 1592.'—Outlines of Life of Shakespeare, 4th Edition.