[Footnote 303: See the documents printed in Fleay's _A Chronicle History of the London Stage_, pp. 211, 215, 240, etc. Mr. Wallace, however (_The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 40 ff.), would have us believe that an additional story was added: "the roof was changed, and rooms, probably of the usual dormer sort, were built above." I am quite sure he is mistaken.] The main entrance to the playhouse was at the north, over the "great yard" which extended from the Pipe Office to Water Lane.[304] The stage was opposite this entrance, or at the southern end of the hall, as is shown by one of the documents printed by Mr. Wallace.[305] Since the building was not, like the other playhouses of London, open to the sky, the illumination was supplied by candles, hung in branches over the stage; as Gerschow noted, after visiting Blackfriars, "alle bey Lichte agiret, welches ein gross Ansehen macht."[306] The obvious advantage of artificial light for producing beautiful stage effects must have added not a little to the popularity of the Blackfriars Playhouse. [Footnote 304: Cf. Playhouse Yard in the London of to-day.] [Footnote 305: _The Children of the Chapel at Blackfriars_, p. 43, note 3.] [Footnote 306: _The Diary of the Duke of Stettin-Pomerania_, in _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (1892), VI, 26.] The cost of all the alterations and the equipment could hardly have been less than L300, so that the total cost of the property was at least L900, or in modern valuation approximately $35,000. Burbage's sons, in referring to the building years later, declared that their father had "made it into a playhouse with great charge." "And," they added significantly, "with great trouble." The aristocratic inhabitants of the Blackfriars precinct did not welcome the appearance in their midst of a "public," or, as some more scornfully designated it, a "common," playhouse; and when they discovered the intentions of Burbage, they wrote a strong petition to the Privy Council against the undertaking. This petition, presented to the Council in November, 1596, I quote below in part: