When the theatre reopened in 1674 it had undergone a change of name from Theatre Royal Bridges Street to Theatre Royal Drury Lane, there is however no evidence that the orientation of the new theatre was any different to that of the old theatre. It is clear from contemporary maps that access to the building was maintained on both sides of the building but that the area to the Drury Lane (east) side of the building (known as Theatre Yard) was leased to members of the company, presumably for ‘backstage’ use – keeping the Bridges street (west) side of the building for public space (see Survey of London vol. XXXV for a discussion of the leases associated with the site of the theatre during this period). Why then the change of name? There are a number of factors which might be considered relevant.

The site on which the Theatre Royal stood lies on a parish boundary, Bridges Street lies within the enclave parish of Covent Garden while Drury Lane (and the theatre itself) lies in St. Martin in the Fields.

In spite of the commercial success of the old theatre, the construction of the new theatre suffered significant financial setbacks. Indeed on the destruction of the Theatre Royal Bridges Street, the Earl of Bedford, who owned not only the site of the theatre but the majority of Covent Garden itself, refused to extend the existing lease. Additionally, the cost of the new theatre greatly exceeded the original estimates and in an attempt to meet building costs, the Company appealed to the King for a subsidy and (perhaps more significantly in this case) for the payment of outstanding fees for Court performances. Ongoing financial difficulties indicate that they were unsuccessful.

Lying as it does just off the Strand, the theatre occupies a position approximately halfway between Whitehall and the City. The tension between the traditional seat of power to the west and an emerging mercantile power to the east is a clear focus of the redefinition of the character of London following the plague and fire of 1665-6 and a recurring theme of much of the dramatic output of the age.

It is then possible that the change of name reflects a philosophical reorientation of the aspirations of the company away from the Court and towards the City. In this respect the new theatre figuratively turns its back on the Earl of Bedford’s Covent Garden in particular and less explicitly on the Court in general.

In 1671 the second patent company, The Duke’s Men moved from their home in Lincoln’s Inn Fields to the newly build Dorset Gardens Theatre in Whitefriars. Both buildings lie to the east of the site of the Theatre Royal Drury Lane (in the case of Liconln’s Inn Fields, only about 100 yards to the east of the Drury Lane side of the new theatre). It is possible that in looking east, the managers of the Theatre Royal wished to be more closely identified with other centres of theatrical activity.

Although closely linked with Covent Garden, Bridges Street itself is not a significant thoroughfare, conversely, Drury Lane extends some distance northwards where it meets High Holborn. This area was the focus of the Inns of Court and during the seventeenth century, had become the centre of London’s publishing industry. The change of name then might also have served to establish a sense of ‘ownership’ of the theatre by the literary and professional communities.