Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Thursday 5 October 2023

Did Shakespeare tread these boards?


Recent work at St George’s Guildhall in King’s Lynn has exposed part of the original early fifteenth century timber floor dating from the construction of the Guildhall in 1417-30. This is in itself a noteworthy survival, but it may well have been trod by Shakespeare and other members of the Earl of Pembroke’s Men when plague closed the theatres and drove them out of London in 1592 and 1593. Their refuge was to be found playing in King’s Lynn.

The BBC News website reports on the floor and the evidence for Shakespeare, then in his late twenties, in north west Norfolk with his acting companions in Shakespeare's stage found, claims Norfolk theatre


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