Bear-baiting pit up for sale

The centre of bear baiting in Elizabethan London is up for sale.

Southwark council is selling a plot of land known as the Bear Garden.

The area, a collection of rundown, low-rise warehouses, is possibly the last serious development opportunity on the South Bank.

The guide price is between £3.5million and £4million, reflecting the area's rise in the property world.

Located near the Globe Theatre, Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge, the site "would make for quite an archeological dig for whoever takes it on," according to a council spokesman.

The original Bear Garden, built around 1576, was a place where historically foreign ambassadors met their spies and agents.

In 1583, eight people were killed when the scaffold seating in the pit collapsed under their weight.

Although the sport was condemned by the Puritans, the Bear Garden re-opened a few months later.

The famous showmen Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn maintained the practice of animal baiting alongside theatre production. In 1613, Mr Henslowe tore down the original Bear Garden and replaced it with the Hope Theatre. Again, this doubled as a theatre and animal-baiting arena. The venue was visited in 1666 by Samuel Pepys, who described the spectacle as "a rude and nasty pleasure".

The last recorded instance of animal baiting at the pit occurred on 12 April 1682, when "a fine but vicious horse was advertised to be baited to death for the amusement of the Moroccan ambassador".

Although in its time a serious popular entertainment rival to Shakespearean theatre, bear baiting was finally outlawed in 1835.

The auction will take place at the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington, on Tuesday.