The First London Theatre 13 
In 1582-83, Burbage made extensive improvements in the prop- 
erty. Near the Theatre he built a house for his own use, mainly 
out of new materials, at a cost of 200/. On the evidence of 
Ellam and Hudson, carpenters, he either then or some time before 
repaired the other buildings, shored up the old long barn to 
the Theatre, grounselled, cross-beamed, dogged together and 
strengthened it, so that it was fit for use as tenements. He con- 
verted the barn into eleven tenements, which he rented to poor 
people at 205. per annum, according to the statement of Giles 
Allen in Star Chamber, in 1602. That the poor people thus 
housed were a hardship on the parish, as Allen complained after 
nearly twenty years of their residence there, one may have leave 
to doubt, when one remembers that wandering rogues and vaga- 
bonds previously harbored there. That Burbage improved the 
old mill-house and other buildings and got considerable rent from 
them is apparent. The income from the houses probably paid in 
full the annual rent of 14 /. on the Theatre grounds, leaving Bur- 
bage his own residence rent-free. 
The above expenditures on improvements, amounting to about 
2201., were in fulfilment of the agreement to spend 200/. on 
improving the property, besides building the Theatre, within the 
first ten years, in consideration for which the landlord was to 
grant a ten-year extension of the lease. But when 1585 came 
round, and Burbage brought the new lease for Giles Allen to 
sign, trouble was engendered between them which lasted the rest 
of Burbage’s life. 
When Burbage and the scrivener brought Allen the new lease, 
in the presence of his later witnesses, Philip Baker, John Gold- 
born, Henry Johnson, and others, he refused to sign it on the 
ground that it was “not verbatim agreeable with the ould lease,” 
which Burbage told him was the fault of the scrivener’s, not his. 
Then Allen wanted time to consider it. Upon Burbage’s refusal 
‘or demurrer, Allen said he would take leave. So he pocketed the 
lease, and never did sign it. A verbatim copy of the 1585 lease, 
incorporating the substance of the 1576 lease, is preserved in the 
suit of Allen v. Street, 1600. It closes with a special provision 
13 
