Rose Alley. The site therefore lay in the Liberty of the Clink midway between those afterwards occupied by the Globe on the east and the Hope on the west. On 20 November 1574 the parish let the property for thirty-one years at £7 annually to William Griffin, vintner. Griffin assigned it on 11 December 1579 to Robert Withens, vintner, and Withens on 24 March 1585 to Henslowe.[1] There was as yet no theatre. The first mention of one as in contemplation is in an agreement of 10 January 1587 between Henslowe and one John Cholmley, citizen and grocer of London, for partnership during the next eight years and three months, should both parties live so long, in a garden plot ninety-four feet square on the Bankside in the parish of St. Saviour's, Southwark, and 'a playe howse now in framinge and shortly to be ereckted and sett vppe vpone the same'. Under this Henslowe undertook to have 'the saide play house with all furniture thervnto belonginge' set up 'with as muche expedicion as maye be' by John Grigges, carpenter, to pay all rents due on the premisses, and to repair the bridges and wharves belonging to them before the following Michaelmas. Cholmley undertook to bear his share of any further cost of maintaining the premises, and also to pay Henslowe the sum of £816 in quarterly instalments. In consideration of this, he was to take half of all such profits as 'shall arysse grow be colectted gathered or become due for the saide parcell of grounde and playe howse when and after yt shalbe ereckted and sett vpe by reason of any playe or playes, that shalbe showen or played there or otherwysse howsoever'. The partners are jointly to appoint 'players to vse exersyse & playe in the saide playe howse', and collect sums themselves or by deputy of all persons coming to the performances 'excepte yt please any of the saide partyes to suffer theire frendes to go in for nothinge'. Cholmley is also to have the sole right of selling food or drink on the premises and a small house already in his tenure on the south of the plot close to Maiden Lane, 'to keepe victualinge in' or for any other purpose, and with a right of ingress from Thames side by Rose Alley.[2] The deed does not name the property, but it cannot be doubted that it refers to a part of the Little Rose. Presumably the theatre was to be built on a garden at the back of the holding, and the existing tenement on Bankside was not to be interfered with. Henslowe had 'Rosse rentes' of a residential character in 1602 or 1603.[3] Norden's map (1593) puts the Rose farther from the river than the Bear Garden. The Delaram and Merian drawings,
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