Legal London

This walk goes through the Inns of Court, the workplace of law & lawyers, and takes in some of the traditions associated with the law. Allow 1 hour.

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Start at Temple underground station. Turn left climb the steps, turn right along Temple Place, and left into Milford Lane. Almost immediately, turn right again through a wrought iron gate in the wall and, after a few steps, left, up the stone steps to the top.

The Inns of Court
In these medieval colleges, the law students lived and learnt; nowadays, the most expensive and knowledgeable lawyers in the land work here. The cobbled pedestrianised courtyards, superb examples of ancient buildings, and some of London's last surviving gas lamps create a London of the storybooks atmosphere.
Should you look in any of the windows into a window at bundles of documents bound in red ribbon, the origin of the phrase 'tied up in red tape' and the derivation of the cockney slang for a lawyer a “brief” . Turn right at the fountain; on the right is Middle Temple Hall.

Middle Temple Hall
Opened by Queen Elizabeth 1 in 1576, this is still a functioning dining room, closed to visitors between noon and 3pm. The gilded lamb and flag on the weathervane is the symbol of the Middle Temple. Reputedly Shakespeare's Twelfth Night was first performed here. Continue uphill on Middle Temple Lane; a few steps on the right is Pump Court Cloisters. Proceed to the second courtyard. This is the Inner Temple, whose symbol is Pegasus, the winged horse.

Temple Church
The Temple Church is a late-12th-century church in London located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, built for and by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters. In modern times, two Inns of Court (Inner Temple and Middle Temple) both use the church. It is famous for its effigy tombs and for being a round church. It was heavily damaged during the Second World War but has been largely restored. The area around the Temple Church is therefore known as the Temple
This is one of the few Norman round churches left in England, the shape inspired by the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem. Leave the courtyard through the archway into Mitre Court. Turn left, and continue up to Fleet St. Turn left.

Fleet Street
Fleet Street was synonymous with printing presses for 500 years, until the new technology and the breaking of the unions, took the newspapers east toward the redeveloped docks, along Commercial & East India Dock Road toward the Blackwall Tunnel you can see them working, through vast glass windows. Opposite is the church of St Dunstan-in-the-West, where the Dickens’s Character’s Betsy Trotwood and David Copperfield admired Gog and Magog striking the quarter hours on the clock outside, Notice the small statue of Elizabeth I set in the wall below it? John Donne, the famous poet and Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, rector from 1624 to 1631, and is commemorated by a monument inside the church.

Tavern & Club
On the left, Ye Old Cock Tavern claims to be the oldest hostelry in Fleet Street, and hidden up a narrow staircase at No. 17 are Prince Henry's Rooms, with a decorated ceiling dating from around 1610. Opposite Wren's magical entrance to Middle Temple Lane, the defiant, Griffon, unofficial badge of the city, guards this entrance to the City of London. Originally, the site of the Old Temple Bar gateway. In the windows of Nos 229-119th-century cartoons of lawyers and journalists reflect the membership in the Wig and Pen club.


The Law Courts
The Royal Courts of Justice, a 100-year-old Victorian Gothic style building, designed to inspire the good and instill fear in villains, has over 1,000 rooms dealing with civil (non-criminal), as well as high level criminal court and appeal cases.
Back along Fleet St to Chancery Lane and turn left.

Chancery Lane
Across from the Law Society at No. 113 was the Public Record Office until 1997, when it moved out to Kew. At No. 93, Ede and Ravenscroft still make the wigs and robes for judges and barristers. The bomb-proof basement stores royal robes of state. Turn back and enter Carey St.

Carey Street
'To be in Carey Street' was another cockney slang, phrase for being bankrupt, or broke, “you’l end up in Carey Street”. Next turn right on to Scrle St and proceed to Lincoln s Inn Fields.

Lincoln's Inn Fields
The Tudor style brick buildings of Lincoln's Inn have a record of 11 prime ministers as students, from Walpole to Margaret Thatcher, a lot to answer to! Superb gardens of any of the Inns of Court. Supposedly Charles Dickens based parts of Bleak House on his experience as a lawyer's clerk here. Continuing around the Fields, is one of London's most hidden museum, that of Sir John Soane a 19th-century architect of Sloan Sq fame. Leave the Lincoln s Inn Fields on Gate St which leads toward Holborn underground station.
this walk is from Chris Hobbs

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