Cockpit-in-Court

It was one of a number of new pleasure buildings constructed for King Henry's entertainment, including a real tennis court, a bowling alley, and a tiltyard, and was used as an actual cockpit; that is, an area for staging cockfighting.

[1] The Cockpit ceased to be used for cockfighting in Jacobean times, and was used instead as a private theatre and as chambers for members of the Royal Household.

William III then moved his London residence to nearby St James's Palace, and the site was rebuilt to be used as government offices, and residential and commercial premises.

[3] When Anne became queen after the death of William in 1702, she gave the residence to the loyal Churchills, now Duke and Duchess of Marlborough.

The minstrel's gallery on the ground floor is currently decorated with pictures of fighting cocks and a model of the old Whitehall palace.

A replica theatre based on Inigo Jones' 1629 plan of the Cockpit-in-Court is part of the Shakespeare North complex in Prescot, Merseyside.

Cockpit-in-Court from an engraving by Mazell in Pennant's London , reproduced in the London Topographical Record (1903)
Inigo Jones plans for the Cockpit-in-Court
A retrospective plan of Whitehall Palace as it was in 1680, by Fisher. The Cockpit is the octagonal building near the top left corner. The Banqueting House is just to the left of the centre. Whitehall follows the line of the road marked "White Hall" from the right and continues through the west side of the Privy Garden . North is at the top.