The building could have been moved from its original location, much as The Theatre was moved and rebuilt into the Globe Theatre in 1598–99. The names of the facility and its location were merged in popular usage: John Stow, writing in 1583, calls it 'The Beare-garden, commonly called the Paris garden.' Late-16th-century sources, however - the Speculum Britanniae map of 1593, and the Civitas Londini map of 1600 - show the Beargarden farther to the east, in the liberty of the Clink, where it sits on the northwestern side of the Rose Theatre. Documentary sources from the middle 16th century refer to the bear-baiting rink as being in Paris Garden, the liberty at the western end of the Bankside. It was located in the Bankside, across from the City of London on the south bank of the River Thames in Southwark but its exact location is unclear, and apparently changed over time.

Contemporaneous illustrated maps of the city show a substantial three-storey building that resembles the theatres nearby. The Beargarden was constructed as a round or polygonal open structure, comparable to the public theatres built in and around London starting in 1576. The last recorded event at the Beargarden was the baiting of 'a fine but vicious horse' in 1682. Samuel Pepys visited the venue in 1666 and described it as 'a rude and nasty pleasure'. Baiting is a blood sport where an animal is tormented or attacked by another animal, often dogs, for the purpose of entertainment or gambling. The Beargarden was a facility for bear-baiting, bull-baiting, and other ' animal sports' in the London area during the 16th and 17th centuries, from the Elizabethan era to the English Restoration period. The Beargarden and the Rose Theatre depicted in Norden's Map of London, 1593 The Beargarden from Visscher's Map of London, published in 1616, but representing the city as it was several years earlier. For the 1980s New Wave band, see Beargarden (band).

The garden bonus bear