When the Department of Greater London Archaeology (now MOLA) carried out the excavation work, the staff found many objects which are now stored in the museum itself. Portions of the theatre's foundations, under the "ingressi" (wooden stairs leading to the galleries), were littered with fruit seeds and hazelnut shells; it has been claimed that hazelnuts were the popcorn of English Renaissance drama. When combined with cinder and earth, they provided a tough floor surface "so tough, indeed, that 400 years later archaeologists had to take a pickaxe to it to penetrate it". Initially the floor of the yard (including the area beneath the raised wooden stage) had a screeded mortar surface but when the building was extended a compacted layer of silt, ash and clinker, mixed with hazelnut shells, was used. The nutshells were brought to the site from a nearby soap works, where the nuts were crushed for their oil, rather than evidence of litter left by the audience.