Place Name
Named after haberdasher William Ireland, who owned a house here in the 1500s, which had previously been the gatehouse of Blackfriars Priory. The record of his ownership which states it its “now or late in the occupacon of one William Ireland” is preserved for prosperity not least to whom he sold the property for £140 to in 1613, William Shakespeare. The bard however did not stay long, if at all, leasing the house almost straight away.
