Hope Theatre

[2] The Hope was built in 1613–14 by Philip Henslowe and a partner, Jacob Meade, on the site of the old Beargarden on the Bankside in Southwark, on the south side of the River Thames — at that time, outside the legal bounds of the City of London.

The contract calls for a: John Stow records that stage plays were mounted on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, with bear baiting on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Because Henslowe's original contract with Katherens survives,[3] we know something about the specifics of the construction of the Hope, more so than for other theatres of the period.

On 31 October, Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair was acted in the Hope by the Lady Elizabeth's Men.

The actors left for the Cockpit Theatre in 1619, and the Hope was thereafter used for bear and bull baiting, prizefighting, fencing contests, and similar entertainments.

)[6] By one (questionable) account, the Hope Theatre was "pulled down to make tenements, by Thomas Walker, a petticoat maker in Canon Street," on Tuesday, 25 March 1656.

The Hope playhouse, or second Bear Garden, from Hollar's View of London (1647) — the engraver's misnaming corrected. [ 1 ]
Hope playhouse depicted on Hollar's Post-conflagration map in the Crace Collection of the British Museum; the lower view is from Faithorne's Map of London (1658)
The Hope Theatre is labelled in the bottom centre of this London street map. Enlarge