Shakespearean Playhouses: A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the RestorationAdams, Joseph Quincy
History
Shakespearean Playhouses: A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration
Adams, Joseph Quincy
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Stage history -- To 1625; Theaters -- England -- London -- History
(1) The Parliament Chamber, extending over the Hall, Parlor, and
Infirmary. This great chamber, it will be recalled, had previously
been divided by Cawarden into the Frith and Cheeke Lodgings;[292] but
now it was arranged as a single tenement of seven rooms, and was
occupied by the eminent physician William de Lawne:[293] "All those
seven great upper rooms as they are now divided, being all upon one
floor, and sometime being one great and entire room, with the roof
over the same, covered with lead." Up into this tenement led a special
pair of stairs which made it wholly independent of the rest of the
building.
[Footnote 292: The northern section of the Cheeke Lodging (a portion
of the old Buttery) which had constituted Farrant's private theatre,
and which was no real part of the Frater building, had been converted
by More into the Pipe Office.]
[Footnote 293: A prosperous physician. His son was one of the
illustrious founders of the Society of Apothecaries, and one of its
chief benefactors. His portrait may be seen to-day in Apothecaries'
Hall. See C.R.B. Barrett, _The History of the Society of Apothecaries
of London_.]
(2) The friar's "Parlor," now made into a tenement occupied by Thomas
Bruskett, and called "the Middle Rooms, or Middle Stories"--possibly
from the fact that it was the middle of three tenements, possibly from
the fact that having two cellars under its northern end it was the
middle of three stories. It is described as being fifty-two feet in
length north and south, and thirty-seven feet in width. Why a strip of
nine feet should have been detached on the eastern side is not clear;
but that this strip was also included in the sale to Burbage is shown
by later documents.
(3) The ancient "Hall" adjoining the "Parlor" on the north, and now
made into two rooms. These rooms were combined with the ground floor
of the Duchy Chamber building to constitute a tenement occupied by
Peter Johnson: "All those two lower rooms now in the occupation of the
said Peter Johnson, lying directly under part of the said seven great
upper rooms." The dimensions are not given, but doubtless the two
rooms together extended the entire width of the building and were
approximately as broad as the Duchy Chamber building, with which they
were united.
(4) The Duchy Chamber building "at the north end of the said seven
great upper rooms, and at the west side thereof." At the time of the
sale the ground floor of this building was occupied by Peter Johnson,
who had also the Hall adjoining it on the west; the middle story was
occupied by Charles Bradshaw; and the top story by Edward Merry.[294]
[Footnote 294: Mr. Wallace's description of the building and the way
in which it was converted into a playhouse (_The Children of the
Chapel at Blackfriars_, pp. 37-41) is incorrect. For the various
details cited above see the deed of sale to Burbage.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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