Her Majesty's Theatre provided the first alternative to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, built in 1663 and the Lincoln's Inn, founded in 1660 (forerunner of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, built in 1728). The theatre's site is the second oldest such site in London that remains in use. These three post-interregnum theatres defined the shape and use of modern theatres. The land for the theatre was held on a lease renewable in 1740 and was ultimately owned, as it is today, by the Crown Estate. Building was delayed by the necessity of acquiring the street frontage, and a three bay entrance led to
Football in London having been founded in 1879. However, Isthmian League side Cray Wanderers is the oldest extant club in all of the Greater London area, having been founded in 1860 in St Mary Cray | (then part of Kent but now in the London Borough of Bromley). Initially, football in London was dominated by amateur teams, drawing their membership from former public schoolboys but gradually working-class sides came to the forefront. Royal Arsenal was London's first professional team, becoming so in 1891, a move which saw them boycotted by the amateur London Football Association. Other London clubs soon followed Arsenal's footsteps in