Expanding on yesterday’s wanderings towards the Thames, it’s worth spending the time exploring the confines of Temple. Inner Temple and Middle Temple make up two of the capital’s four Inns Of Court, the bodies to which all barristers in this country belong in order to be called such. Skip to the end of complicated legal proceedings…
So you end up with an array of chambers, libraries, dining halls, lodgings and chapels that make up Inner Temple, and another for Middle Temple. Inner Temple is the Eastern side, nearer the City, and contains, among other things, the community’s fascinating church.
Built in the 11th century, Temple Church was the HQ of the Knights Templar of Crusades/Da Vinci Code/other barmy conspiracies fame. Its unusual round tower is to remind worshippers of the Church of The Holy Sepulchre, which the Knights fought to secure during the Crusades, and is a towering, yet still elegant, awesome yet tranquil edifice. Today it’s known as much for its history as its music, the Temple Choir being ranked one of the finest in the country.
Opposite this is the now familiar Pegasus emblazoned on Inner Temple Hall, the former buttery for the Inn. From there you can access Kings Bench Walk, Serjeants Inn, Inner Temple Gardens (which back onto the Thames, or at least Victoria Embankment), Crown Office Row’s charming little fountain and garden, and Crown Office Row. This takes you through to Middle Temple Lane, which divides the two Inns.
The other side of this narrow, cobbled street with its high buildings, archways and crests is Middle Temple, the second Inn of Court in the area. The heart of this area is Middle Temple Hall, a grandiose and quite beautiful red-brick dining hall. The tradition has always been that to be a member of Middle Temple, a barrister needed to dine here for a certain number of nights per year. But far from being a serious, grave affair, this stretches back to the premiere of Twelfth Night and much lawyerly merriment, if you can imagine such a thing.
Outside the hall is a paved courtyard with some beautifully knobbly, huge trees and a fountain which is surely one of the most pleasant parts in the area in which to spend one’s lunch break. Possibly eating a Cornish pasty. This backs onto the sweeping Middle Temple Gardens, which like their Inner equivalents, swathe right down to Victoria Embankment and the Thames.
There’s plenty of other nooks and crannies which can be wended and wound through. Dickens was correct in his summary of the Temple, it really has an uncanny tranquility, not to mention a feeling of grand historical importance, both on the legal, and ecclesiastical sides. From here you can venture along the Thames, up to St Pauls, across to Lincoln’s Inn (the next on the list of Inns Of Court) or to wherever you so desire.
