ABSTRACT
The triumph of the amphitheatrical gamehouse in such sophisticated Jacobean and Caroline playhouses as the two Globes and the two Cockpits must not blind us to the importance of rectangular buildings as contributors to the ultimate architectural design of theatres in post-Restoration England. Like the game-houses these were of two kinds; large, open-air auditoria and smaller, more intimate and covered buildings. The prototype of the latter was the mediaeval hall, and that of the former the yard of the mediaeval inn, that is, a coaching hostelry or nobleman's town residence. An inn, in both senses, could thus incorporate a hall as well as a yard. These too had their triumphs in both kinds during the early seventeenth century in the Blackfriars Theatre and the Banquet House of the Court Masks: nor should the later tennis-courts be overlooked.
