The Rose Playhouse

The Rose’s well-preserved archaeology was discovered in 1989 during a routine exploratory excavation held in the interval between site clearance and re-development of an office block. The Rose became a major international news story, and the site attracted many thousands of visitors. A campaign to ‘Save the Rose’ and protect it from redevelopment was launched with enthusiastic support from actors, scholars and the general public. Currently The Rose can tell the visitor much about its life between 1587 and 1603. Red rope lights around the site indicate the size of the Rose, its courtyard or pit and the position of its two stages. There is a viewing platform from which these lights can be seen and an exhibition about not only The Rose, but about the area of Bankside which it occupied in the late 1590s and early 1600s.