Companies of strolling players formed themselves and passed from town to town, seeking like the industrious amateurs of the guilds, civic patronage, and performing in town-halls, market-place booths, or inn yards, whichever served them best.

The structure of the Elizabethan inn yard (you may see some survivals still, and there are the pictures in _Pickwick_) was very favourable for their purpose.

The galleries round it made seats like our boxes and circle for the more privileged spectators; in the centre on the floor of the yard stood the crowd or sat, if they had stools with them.

The stage was a platform set on this floor space with its back against one side of the yard, where perhaps one of the inn-rooms served as a dressing room.

So suitable was this "fit-up" as actors call it, that when theatres came to be built in London they were built on the inn-yard pattern.