The Town: Its Memorable Characters and EventsHunt, Leigh
History
The Town: Its Memorable Characters and Events
Hunt, Leigh
London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History
Returning over the way we come to Dorset Street and Salisbury Court,
names originating in a palace of the Bishop of Salisbury, which he
parted with to the Sackvilles. Clarendon lived in it a short time
after the Restoration. At the bottom of Salisbury Court, facing the
river, was the celebrated play-house, one of the earliest in which
theatrical entertainments were resumed at that period. The first
mention we find of it is in the following curious memorandum in the
manuscript book of Sir Henry Herbert, master of the revels to King
Charles I. "I committed Cromes, a broker in Longe Lane, the 16th of
Febru., 1634, to the Marsalsey, for lending a church robe with the
name of _Jesus_ upon it to the players in Salisbury Court, to present
a Flamen, a priest of the heathens. Upon his petition of submission,
and acknowledgment of his fault, I released him, the 17 Febru.,
1634."[79]
It is not certain, however, whether the old theatre in Salisbury
Court, and that in Dorset Garden, were one and the same; though they
are conjectured to have been so. The names of both places seem to have
been indiscriminately applied. Be this as it may, the house became
famous under the Davenants for the introduction of operas and of a
more splendid exhibition of scenery; but in consequence of the growth
of theatres in the more western parts of the town, it was occasionally
quitted by the proprietors, and about the beginning of the last
century abandoned. This theatre was the last to which people went in
boats.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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