Theatre Royal, Drury Lane Theatre Royal, Drury Lane The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drury Lane. The building is the most recent in a line of four theatres which were built at the same location, the earliest of which dated back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed
London Bridge Is Falling Down Dancing o'er The Lady-Lee. </poem> The oldest extant version could be that recalled by a correspondent to the "Gentleman's Magazine" in 1823, which he claimed to have heard from a woman who was a child in the reign of Charles II (r. 1660–85) and had the lyrics: <poem>London Bridge is broken down, London Bridge is broken down, The earliest printed English version is in the oldest extant collection of nursery rhymes, "Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book", printed by John Newbery in London (c. 1744), beginning with the following text: <poem> London Bridge Is Broken down, Dance over my Lady Lee.