Legal London: The Inns of Court of Chancery

Following in the footsteps of Antiquity Every visitor to the UK should start the day with a traditional English breakfast complete with bacon and eggs, sausages, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, toast and preserves, cereal and coffee. Oh, and I almost forgot, fried (yes, fried) bread! There is something to be said for the reserves of energy to be found in this artery-clogging repast and if you wish to spend the day exploring some of the undiscovered pockets of the city of London, as I often do when I am there, no repast could be better consumed. Legal London is my name for that part of the city that is sandwiched between High Holburn and Fleet Street. It is here that the Inns of Court at Chancery are hidden. I had first heard of them as an undergraduate reading English Literature at Elphinstone College, Bombay. Charles Dickens’ novel Bleak House that covers the endless affairs of the court case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce is set in this very evocative part of London while, in more recent years, my familiarity with a British TV show called Kavanagh QC starring John Thaw in the role of Queens Counsel Kavanagh had also taken me into this very heart of British jurisprudence. Alighting from the tube at Chancery, I strolled along Gray’s Inn Road all set to explore the first of the four Inns of Court (whose names are Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, Inner Temple and Middle Temple). These institutions are called “inns” because they were conceived as residential colleges for the training of lawyers in the same sense that the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge were set up as residential institutions for the training of church ministers. Just as I was reading my guide book and getting a grip on the system, I was befriended by a young solicitor named Steven who took me under his wing and became my self-appointed guide around the maze of streets that comprise legal London. Steven explained the system to me as we walked past the beautiful Gothic buildings that contain dining halls, chapels and “chambers” within their sprawling dimensions. At Steven’s suggestion, I waited until 12 noon when Trinity Chapel opened to explore an exquisite Anglican church that had been consecrated in 1623 when the famous metaphysical poet John Donne preached a stirring sermon to mark its consecration. Its beautiful stained glass windows sport hundreds of crests of the families of several prominent knights from the days of England’s past as a keeper of the faith. Leaving the vast quadrangle of Gray’s Inn behind me (above left), I rested in its superb gardens, then crossed Holburn and entered Lincoln’s Inn through a very tiny alleyway tucked secretly in the labyrinth of solid gray granite structures that comprise the “Stone Buildings”. The perennial gardens at Lincoln’s Inn were full of irises, peonies and tulips on that spring morning (left). They made such a handsome sight against the red brick Gothic buildings behind them. Going past the squat archway that connected the Inn to Lincoln’s Inn Field, I arrived on Serle Street (above right) that adjoins Carey Street of which “Queer” Street was a derivative. Clients facing bankruptcy in Dickens’ Victorian days were said to be headed up “Queer Street” when their businesses fell apart and they were held in Debtors Prison for life because they were unable to pay back their hapless creditors. Lincoln’s Inn Field is not a field at all today but a vast public park which, thanks to the glorious weather, was jam packed with Londoners enjoying the sun on their backs as they munched on picnic lunches. Unable to spend too much time there, I headed for Sir John Soane’s Museum on the north side of the park to see one of London’s lesser-known but no less fascinating museums. Sir John Soane was a Victorian architect (best known for his work on the Bank of England) whose true passion was the collection of artifacts and antiquities from the classical civilizations of Greece and Rome. He spent a good part of the fortune he made in acquiring a massive collection of archeological figurines, busts, statues, sarcophagi, urns, bowls and the like that hailed from that golden era. He also collected architectural fragments from famous London buildings such as the Parliament Buildings, all of which were used to decorate his home on the square. The end result is three floors of three houses that are crammed with this whimsical collection, a huge array of architectural drawings and paintings by Joseph Gandy who was Soane’s preferred artist and a magnificent Picture Gallery whose doors open up in three tiers to allow to maximum display of oil paintings. Among the most famous of these are the two series entitled The Election and The Rake’s Progress by 18th century English master William Hogarth and any number of Soane’s own architectural drawings of landmark London buildings. Though this is an exceedingly small museum in terms of square footage, it was breathtaking in its magnitude and the wealth of art objects displayed within. If you have never seen this building before, I recommend it heartily. It might not be the National Gallery but if you are particularly drawn to classical antiquity, this is one of the finest receptacles of such finds that you will ever see. Then it was time for lunch. I picked up sandwiches from Prêt a Manger, the ubiquitous sandwich chain that has taken over Europe. Not quite ready to eat, however, I crossed Fleet Street, went past the Royal Courts of Justice, saw the pub called the Seven Stars that has been frequented by solicitors for centuries and entered Temple where a doorway led me right into the churchyard of what is perhaps the most famous church in London today—Temple Church—made into a household name by Dan Brown’s international best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code and which, coincidentally enough, was scheduled to be released in London the week following my visit in a Ron Howard film starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou. I had intended to visit this lovely, small, round Norman church made of Cotswold stone (left),  but little did I expect to come upon it as suddenly as I did. Yet throngs of Da Vinci Code fans have been seeking out this little Temple Church, so-called because it was constructed by the Knights Templar, one of the oldest English Order of Knights charged with protecting pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem in the days of the Crusades. You do not have to read Brown’s novel, however, to escape from the bustle of commercial London into this mysterious church, the first and largest that the Knights Templar constructed in London and consecrated in 1185.         Entering the church, I found a discussion in progress with the current Master of the Church and a panel of medieval historians whose research has suddenly shot into prominence following the world’s desire to know the real secrets behind the disappearance of  the Holy Grail and its recovery. The discussion was being televised but I was free to wander around the back of the church to the nave where the effigies of the ten knights are supposed to contain the coded clues to the whereabouts of the Grail (above left). Despite its tiny size, Temple Church retains an air of antiquity of its historic past as an important link in the chain that kept England in the grip of fervent Christianity in the Middle Ages. Outside the church, I wandered in the cloisters and gardens ‘lost’ beneath surrounding Inns of Court buildings. In the churchyard, there is a tall pillar on which a sculpture of a Knight Templar gives visitors an idea of the kind of earnest men who protected the early church. If one wishes to explore the rest of the buildings that comprise the Temple and Inner Temple complex, one will eventually come upon Old Bailey, as the Supreme Court of Justice in the land is known and which is characterized by the gilded sculpture of the Goddess who balances the scales of Justice in her hands. Then began my long walk along Holburn and Shaftesbury Street to Bloomsbury as I had a series of business meetings scheduled during the afternoon at New York University’s campus in London. Needless to say, the temperature was perfect and walking gave me a marvelous opportunity to mingle with other energetic Londoners and tourists, all of whom were determined to make the most of the beautiful day. Following my nose to Bedford Square where NYU is located, I found myself early enough for my appointments to be able to spend some time in the private Bedford Gardens that are open only to residents whose homes overlook the square. My NYU ID card entitled me to the keys and feeling extraordinarily lucky and deeply privileged, I sat down to enjoy my picnic lunch on a park bench in a quiet, secluded and very pretty part of London where fat squirrels played tag in the trees and birds sang melodiously to celebrate the weather. Almost uncontrollably, sleep stole over my senses and I lay down on a park bench to have one of the nicest naps I can remember! Indeed, when I awoke, about 20 minutes later, everyone else had left the park and I had that entire green expanse of lawn and shrub and tree to myself. I felt as if I were in my own isolated bit of Paradise and I had to pinch myself to believe that I was, in fact, in the midst of one of the world’s most populous cities. I spent the afternoon with my British colleagues at NYU, touring the beautiful old campus building, once the residence of Lord Eldon, Chancellor and Lord Mayor of London. Prof. David Ruben, Director of NYU London, was particularly nice as were many of the administrative staff and I had very productive discussions with them. Then, all business commitments complete, I walked just two minutes down the street to the massive Neo-Classical expanse of the British Museum. Luckily, Thursdays mean longer hours at the museum which being open till 8.30pm left me ample time to linger in front of the Highlights that I had seen, many years ago, on a Highlights Tour. I headed off first to spend some quiet contemplative time with the controversial Elgin Marbles that occupy a vast gallery in the Museum (left). After photographing the marbles from several angles and taking many close-ups, I moved on towards the other highlights. There was the Rosetta Stone (below left) that led to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyophics; there was the Nereid monument; there was the lovely Portland Vase that had inspired John Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn; there were the magnificent Assyrian winged bull sculptures from the Temples of Nineveh and Nimrud; there were the rooms stuffed with Egyptian mummies and all funerary accoutrements; there were the treasures of the Anglo-Saxon ship that was found buried at Sutton Hoo, and, for the first time, I saw also the interesting Warren Cup, a sterling silver Roman Cup that is completely engraved with erotic homosexual scenes. What a lovely two hours I spent there, enjoying, most of all, the Great Court that was inaugurated in 2003 and is dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. Featuring a massive ceiling skylight, it forms the largest enclosed space in Europe. The contrast between the Neo-Classical design of the exterior of the British Museum and the extremely contemporary interior was not lost on me and I was struck repeatedly by the genius that pulled this project together. Legal London has a great deal to offer the traveler. There is the possibility of going back in time to a Victorian world when unscrupulous lawyers held poor citizens in their merciless grip. There is the chance to discover the passion that made stone acquisitions from Classical antiquity an obsession for one wealthy architect. There is the British Museum, one of the world’s greatest, where manuscripts in the handwriting of William Shakespeare and John Lenon might be perused at leisure. There are churches hoary with age in which regular worship still occurs. I could go on and on…if the opportunity to see the less well-trodden paths of London ever presents itself, do not sneeze at the chance to do so. You will be rewarded by some of the most stirring memories. And you will realize that the solitary traveler is never alone. For in spaces that evoke so many emotions, one’s own company is really all one will ever need. Bon Voyage!