ABSTRACT

The establishment of permanent theatre buildings for the performance of plays is the outstanding fact of Elizabethan theatre history. The first bear pit-like theatre to be built in London was at Mile End in the grounds of Red Lion Farm in 1567. The Theatre – its name was designedly classical – was built in Finsbury Fields, about a mile north of the east end of the city. Like later playhouses, the first Theatre was a circular or polygonal building, perhaps as much as a hundred feet in diameter. Made mostly of timber with plaster filling and a tiled roof over the galleries, it contained a yard surrounded by three tiers of galleries. A number of inns scattered in and around London were cashing in on the popularity of theatre, and building stages in their yards. Foremost among these probably was the Bel Savage on Ludgate Hill near the Old Bailey.