V. There existed, in different parts of the country, buildings entirely set apart for Nonconformist worship. Some of them were barns and warehouses adapted to the purpose, and in Norwich the refectory and dormitory of the old Blackfriars’ Convent, which, after the Restoration, had been turned into granaries for the City corn, were fitted up by permission of the Court of Mayoralty, for the use of the Presbyterian and Independent Congregationalists: also the old Leather Hall, in Coventry, a gloomy but spacious room, fitted up with galleries, was used for Nonconformist religious service.[300] A large meeting-house was erected in Zoar Street, Southwark, not far from the spot occupied by the summer theatre of Shakespeare, and within that building John Bunyan attracted immense congregations. “If there were but one day’s notice given,” his friend, Charles Doe, remarks, “there would be more people come together to hear him preach than the meeting-house could hold. I have seen, to hear him preach, by my computation, about 1,200 at a morning lecture, by seven o’clock, on a working-day, in the dark winter time. I also computed about 3,000 that came to hear him one Lord’s Day, at London, at a town’s-end meeting-house [in Zoar Street], so that half were fain to go back again for want of room, and then himself was fain at a back-door to be pulled almost over people to get upstairs to his pulpit.”[301] Mill Hill Chapel, at Leeds, was built during the period of Indulgence, being the first edifice erected by Dissenters “_more ecclesiastico_ with arches.”[302] A meeting-house at Yarmouth is described as measuring fifty-eight feet one way, and sixty feet another, with a gallery quite round close to the pulpit, with six seats in it, one behind the other, and all accommodation possible for the reception of people below.[303] The “fanatic party” at Margate is referred to as building a “conventicle house” when it was illegal to do so, and as making great haste to get it up in spite of His Majesty’s proclamation.[304] In some cases, so favourably inclined were the parish authorities, that they allowed Nonconformists to meet in the Church. At Southwold, every fourth Sunday, the incumbent and the Dissenting ministers both conducted Divine service under the same roof. The first who came took precedence, and after he had pronounced the Benediction, his neighbour began another service in his own way.