[Illustration: THE SITE OF THE FIRST PLAYHOUSES Finsbury Field lies to the north (beyond Moor Field, the small rectangular space next to the city wall), and the Holywell Property lies to the right of Finsbury Field, between the Field and the highway. Holywell Lane divides the garden plots; the Theatre was erected just to the north, and the Curtain just to the south of this lane, facing the Field. (From the _Map of London_ by Braun and Hogenbergius representing the city as it was in 1554-1558.)] Burbage learned that a large portion of this land lying next to the Field was in the possession of a well-to-do gentleman named Gyles Alleyn,[35] and that Alleyn was willing to lease a part of his holding on the conditions of development customary in this section of London. These conditions are clearly revealed in a chancery suit of 1591: The ground there was for the most part converted first into garden plots, and then leasing the same to diverse tenants caused them to covenant or promise to build upon the same, by occasion whereof the buildings which are there were for the most part erected and the rents increased.[36] [Footnote 35: For a detailed history of the property from the year 1128, and for the changes in the ownership of Alleyn's portion after the dissolution, see Braines, _Holywell Priory_.] [Footnote 36: Halliwell-Phillipps, _Outlines_, I, 365. The suit concerns the Curtain property, somewhat south of the Alleyn property, but a part of the Priory.] The part of Alleyn's property on which Burbage had his eye was in sore need of improvement. It consisted of five "paltry tenements," described as "old, decayed, and ruinated for want of reparation, and the best of them was but of two stories high," and a long barn "very ruinous and decayed and ready to have fallen down," one half of which was used as a storage-room, the other half as a slaughter-house. Three of the tenements had small gardens extending back to the Field, and just north of the barn was a bit of "void ground," also adjoining the Field. It was this bit of "void ground" that Burbage had selected as a suitable location for his proposed playhouse. The accompanying map of the property[37] will make clear the position of this "void ground" and of the barns and tenements about it. Moreover, it will serve to indicate the exact site of the Theatre. If one will bear in mind the fact that in the London of to-day Curtain Road marks the eastern boundary of Finsbury Field, and New Inn Yard cuts off the lower half of the Great Barn, he will be able to place Burbage's structure within a few yards.[38] [Footnote 37: I have based this map in large measure on the documents presented by Braines in his excellent pamphlet, _Holywell Priory_.] [Footnote 38: For proof see Braines, _op. cit._] [Illustration: A PLAN OF BURBAGE'S HOLYWELL PROPERTY