Archaeology and scheduled monuments

Important Elizabethan and Stuart playhouses were built during the 16th and 17th centuries in what is now the Park Street and Bear Gardens area of Bankside. Other playhouses were also built in this area including:

• the bear baiting arenas (operational from around 1540 to 1662)
• the Rose (1587)
• the Swan (1595)
• the Globe (1599)
• the Hope (1613)

The Newington Butts Theatre (1576) may have been the earliest playhouse in London. It probably once stood south of the New Kent Road, within the site of the former Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre.