Another fine old inn is the Falcon of Chester. It is notable as a good example of old half-timbered work. { 198}
Malone, in his _Supplement_ to Shakspere, mentions the fact that many of our old plays were acted in the yards of Carriers’ Inns, in which, he says, “in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, the comedians, who then first united themselves in companies, erected an occasional stage. The form of these temporary play-houses seems to be preserved in our modern theatre. The galleries are in both ranged over each other, on three sides of the building. The small rooms under the lowest of these galleries answer to our present boxes; and it is observable that these, even in theatres which were built in a subsequent period, expressly for dramatic exhibitions, still retained their old name, and are frequently called rooms by our ancient writers. The yard bears a sufficient resemblance to the pit, as at present in use. We may suppose the stage to have been raised in this area, on the fourth side, with its back to the gateway of the inn, at which the money for admission was taken. Here, in the middle of the Globe, and, I suppose, of the other public theatres in the time of Shakespeare, there was an open yard or area, where the common people stood to see the exhibition, from which circumstances they are called groundlings, and by Ben Jonson, ‘the understanding gentlemen of the ground.’”
At the beginning of the present century the Angel at Islington was a typical, old-fashioned country inn, long and low, with deep overhanging eaves, and a central yard surrounded by double galleries, open to the air and communicating with the bedrooms. Travellers approaching London from the north would frequently remain at the Angel the night, rather than venture into London by dark along a road dangerous alike from its ruts and its footpads. Persons whose business took them to Islington after dark usually waited at an avenue, which then existed on the site of John Street, until a sufficient number of them had assembled to go on in safety to their destination, whither they were escorted by an armed patrol appointed for that purpose. What a striking picture of the insecurity of life and limb in districts close to the metropolis not one hundred years ago!