Shakespeare's Globe Centre (USA) Centre for Globe Research

Rebuilding Shakespeare's Globe

Safety

The design performance of structural elements in fire is one hour. The audience must be able to vacate the Globe in two-and-a-half minutes. Three modifications to a truly authentic ground plan have had to be made to achieve this. The external stairs have been enlarged. Two additional stairs have been added at the junction of auditorium and backstage, where the audience view of the stage is poorest and not disrupting the bay structure. Access to the Yard is by four six-foot wide doors - where accounts of the original fire in 1613 describe the audience escaping through two three-foot wide doors.

The charring of oak at 1,000 degrees Celsius forms an insulating layer about 3/4 inch deep which maintains the integrity of the timber within.

The strength of the structure was checked after it had withstood a kiln temperature of 1,000 degrees centigrade for one hour. Timber of course burns, but a dense hardwood like English oak burns slowly and forms an insulating charcoal layer that naturally slows the burning. 'Rule of thumb' master carpenters were very generous with their timber sizes, and even after this fire attrition the timbers will remain large enough to carry their loads. Early test results imply that the attrition rate is only three quarters of an inch, which gives a total reduction in the structural section of one and a half inches.

As the Globe's perimeter walls are required to have a fire resistance of one hour, fireproof boards are buried in the authentic lath-and-lime plaster walls. This construction is, of course, very unusual and the existing test information on lime plaster implied that it was likely to perform badly in a fire. Tests, however, proved very successful as the panel withstood a temperature of 1,000 degrees centigrade for almost three hours.

Even before the Great Fire, London suffered many devastating fires and it was thatch that often provided the tinder. In 1613 the Globe burnt to the ground after a spark from a stage cannon landed on the thatched roof during a performance of Henry VIII. (Everyone escaped through two small doors, the only casualty being a gentlemen whose breeches had to be drenched with a bottle of beer.)

Today strict precautions against fire must be taken. For the Globe, the thatch has been treated with a fire retarding chemical, a layer of fireboard has been laid on the underside, and a 'sparge pipe', or drenching sprinkler, has been laid along the ridge.

Questions? Email the Research Archive(globe@deans.umd.edu)
Updated on: 1 March 2002