"All the world's a stage," wrote William Shakespeare in his timeless comedy As You Like It. Now a UK theater has uncovered what will surely become the most venerated stage associated with the man regarded as the world's greatest playwright.

St George's Guildhall, in the east English town of King's Lynn, is the country's oldest working theater. For decades rumors had surfaced that The Bard himself might have trod the boards during his acting days.

The uncovering of hidden timber floorboards under the existing auditorium during recent government-funded renovation work, was the perfect excuse to find out for sure.

Tim FitzHigham, the Guildhall's creative director, told CGTN: "We were able to pay this incredible archeologist, Dr. Jonathan Clark, to look at the timbers. He used scientific analysis of tree ring data and his vast knowledge of construction techniques and timber, alongside our documentary evidence to date the floorboards back 600 years."

This means that the stage was constructed between 1417 and 1420 when the theater was originally built.

The documentary evidence FitzHigham mentions consists of a 16th Century accounts book. According to FitzHigham: "The Borough of King's Lynn Accounts Department never throws anything away and their accounts book from 1592-93 records a payment made to William Shakespeare's company, The Earl of Pembroke's Men."

He added: "We also know in 1592 that William Shakespeare was not just a writer, he was also an actor, because of the famous review which gives us the 'Upstart Crow' reference that everybody knows from 1592, written by a man called Robert Greene."

But why would Shakespeare have left the acting hotspot of London for leafy King's Lynn, 100 miles away? With the English capital in the grip of The Plague, many acting companies were forced to tour further afield.

FitzHigham describes the condition of the tennis court-sized floor's condition as "surprisingly good." He explained: "It's a really big area of timber floor hidden away underneath the other floors here at the Guildhall. I can't emphasize how big these timbers are – about 30 centimeters wide – and balanced on even bigger timbers, which are about half a meter square."

The boards, currently visible below a temporary trapdoor area around 15 centimeters deep, form what is being billed as the sole surviving stage on which Shakespeare performed. This will potentially make King's Lynn rival the writer's Stratford-on-Avon birthplace in future tourism stakes.

"It's been patched up on the bits that we've opened up so far. We would say there's about 85 percent of it is the original floor, which is very high for something that old," explained FitzHigham.

An actor himself, FitzHigham had long wondered whether he might be standing on history and says he couldn't be more excited now his dreams have come true. "I'd always wandered around looking at these timbers and thinking, could it be the original floor?"

So what does it feel like to actually tread the same boards as the Bard himself? "I have touched the floor and can say there's something really magical about it. I think it's because wood comes from a living thing, rather than stone. To think that William Shakespeare walked through the door and performed on this stage is an incredible find. We can't quite believe it."

FitzHigham says the dating of the floorboards to 1417-20 also makes it the largest timber framed 15th-century floor left in England. "That is in and of itself incredible. The fact that Shakespeare walked on that floor, performed on that floor and staged plays on that floor suddenly makes it absolutely stratospherically important – a globally significant vital part of world history."

Michael Dobson, director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, agrees. He told the BBC: "The uncovering of the actual boards really trodden by Shakespeare's troupe during their tours of East Anglia should be far more significant to archeologists of the Elizabethan theater than is the conjectural replica of the Globe theater erected near the real, long-demolished Globe's foundations in central London in the 1990s."

The discovery has given the theater one problem, however, albeit one that it's happy to face. Much of the Guildhall's detailed renovation plans to update the theater and surrounding buildings have had to be torn up.

According to FitzHigham: "We had all these wonderful plans from architects and designers, and we've suddenly found this unique, fantastic and magical floor in the middle of it all. So we have got to step back and think 'How do we make the very best we can out of this incredible floor?' There's so many questions we need to resolve in order to share this floor with everybody in a way that's safe, doesn't hurt the floor, and keeps it something very special for the rest of the world for the next 600 years."

Cover image: Portrait of William Shakespeare attributed to John Taylor, Wikimedia Commons

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