COCKPIT, originally an enclosed place in which the sport of cock-fighting (q.v.) was carried on. On the site of an old cock pit opposite Whitehall in London was a block of buildings, used from the 17th century as offices by the treasury and the privy council, for which the old name survived till the early 19th cen tury. The name was given also to a theatre in London, built early in the 17th century on the site of Drury Lane theatre. Applied formerly to a cabin on the lower deck of a man-of-war, where the wounded were tended.