They had mostly been built after the same model, the
gateway or door at the entrance being arched over and placed in the
centre of the front of the hotel. Through this archway the coaches, with
passengers and luggage, could pass in and out, a door on each side of
the entrance leading into different sections of the inn. The yards of
the inns were in the form of an oblong, generally roofed over, and along
each side were the out-offices, storerooms, and stables, with a flat
roof overhead, extending backwards as far as the bedroom doors, and
forming a convenient platform for passengers' luggage as it was handed
on and off the roof of the coach. The outside edge of the platform was
sometimes ornamented with a low palisade, which gave the interior of the
covered yard quite a pleasant and ornamental appearance.
[Illustration]
Such was the character of the inns that existed in the time of
Shakespeare, and although sanitary regulations in later times required
the horses to be provided for in stable-yards farther in the rear, very
little structural alteration in the form of the inns had taken place.
The actor told us that in Shakespeare's time nearly all the acting
outside London and much within was done in the courtyards of these inns.
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