inn yard

plural inn yards

1. alternativeAlternative form of innyard.

   I returned to the inn yard, and, impressed by my remembrance of the face, looked awfully around for it.

   1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, “The Wanderer”, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC, page 416

   2 more examples

   The inn yards of the day afforded convenient enclosures for the performance; moreover, they were real centers of the social life of the village, attracting crowds of tradesmen, farmers, horse dealers, village hangers-on, travellers, gentlemen of quality, and, we can be sure, the inevitable small boy who always manages to attend such affairs without paying for the privilege.

   1916, Daniel Homer Rich, “[Introduction] III.—The Elizabethan Playhouse”, in The Merchant of Venice: As Originally Performed by Shakespeare’s Company (The Globe Theater Shakespeare), New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, pages xx–xxi

   His heart beat at the sight of her, as though he were a young man and this his first assignation outside a cinema, in a Lyons Corner House . . . or in an inn yard in a country town where dances were held.

   1943, Graham Greene, chapter 7, in The Ministry of Fear, Vintage, published 2004