3-095-333 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Old Houses in Aldersgate Street, c1879. Shops in the City of London. 'Howel, writing in the middle of the seventeenth century says: ...We have refrained from giving to the ...house...its assumed name of "Shakespeare's House." Allen (History of London, iii., 56), writing about 1828, speaks of it as "an old building, formerly the Half Moon Tavern" (probably the Moon Tavern spoken of by Howel). "noted as the place of resort of the most celebrated wits of the seventeenth century. It has been let for the last 40 years in tenements."...The legend connecting this house with Shakespeare is quite modern, and destitute of foundation. The house was demolished in 1879. The name of the Tavern still survives in Half-Moon Passage.' Description by Alfred Marks. On the left is a 'hair cutting & shampooing saloon'. The ground floor of "Shakespeare's House" is a 'stationer & newsagent, importer of foreign cigars'.