FINISHING touches to Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre and Elizabethan village in a York car park were being applied today, prior to its opening on Monday.

Thatchers who normally work on film sets for movies from Braveheart to Star Wars have finished thatching five buildings which will serve food and drink in the village near Clifford’s Tower.

And Yorkshire garden designer Sally Tierney has created a colourful Elizabethan garden with ornate box-edged beds of cottage flowers, roses and herbs in a tranquil corner of the site.

A restored farm wagon from the Yorkshire Wolds, dating back to the 1890s, has also been installed nearby, and will be used as a base to provide free entertainment.

James Cundall, chief executive of Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, which is organising Europe’s first pop-up Elizabethan theatre, said the aim was to re-create the full experience of theatre going in Shakespeare’s times.

He said the final task today would be to spread wood chippings across the site to obscure the tarmac and painted parking bays underneath.

He said the project to build the theatre and village in less than a month was fully on schedule, helped by extremely kind weather.

The sunshine is expected to continue shining for at least the first week or two of the open air theatre, with temperatures forecast to soar to 25C on the opening day.

The village will be opened at 11am by Mr Cundall cutting a ribbon, with the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, performing a blessing at 12.30pm.

A town crier will declare the theatre open, local band York Waits will perform 16th Century-inspired music and Yorkshire celebrity chef Brian Turner will serve up gourmet Yorkshire street food.

The first play, Macbeth, is performed on Monday afternoon.