The Inns of Court: Lawyers, Templars & Dickens

London, United Kingdom

50 tickets 2.3 km · about 1 hr 10 mins · 11 stops · Standard walk How Walking Tickets work

Medieval HistoryLiteratureReligion & SpiritualityPolitics & Government

This walk explores a corner of London where medieval religion, legal education, political argument, and literary memory still overlap. Centered on the Inns of Court and the Temple, it traces the area’s shift from the Knights Templar to a legal village for barristers. Along the route, from Bow Street and The Old Curiosity Shop to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Temple Church, One Essex Court, and Devereux Tavern, you can see law, history, and Dickensian London side by side.

The stops

01
Bow Street notables
Bow Street notables is the historic Bow Street area in Covent Garden, known for its court and police associations near the western edge of the legal quarter.
02
The Old Curiosity Shop
The Old Curiosity Shop is the timber-framed building at 13 to 14 Portsmouth Street, a sixteenth-century structure long associated with Charles Dickens's novel of the same name.
03
Lincoln's Inn Fields
Lincoln's Inn Fields is London’s largest public square, laid out beside Lincoln's Inn and closely tied to the legal quarter from the seventeenth century onward.
04
The Maughan Library
The Maughan Library is the main library of King's College London on Chancery Lane, housed in the former Public Record Office designed by Sir James Pennethorne.
05
Temple Bar
Temple Bar is the historic ceremonial gateway marking the boundary between the City of London and Westminster, long associated with royal processions and civic authority.
06
Middle Temple Lane
Middle Temple Lane is the principal approach into Middle Temple from Fleet Street, lined with historic legal buildings within one of the Inns of Court.
07
Temple Church
See opening times and access: https://www.middletemple.org.uk/estates-services/contact-us/directions-and-location-map - Temple Church is the round and rectangular medieval church in the Temple precinct, consecrated in 1185 and shared today…
08
Cloisters at Inner Temple
The Cloisters at Inner Temple are the covered walks within the Inner Temple precinct, attached to one of the historic Inns of Court beside the Thames.
09
Inner Temple Garden
Inner Temple Garden is the riverside garden within the Inner Temple, famed for its legal setting and its association with Shakespeare’s Henry the Sixth, Part One.
10
One Essex Court
One Essex Court is a barristers' chambers building in the Temple, part of the continuing legal life of the Inns of Court near Essex Street.
11
Devereux Tavern
Devereux Tavern is a historic public house on Devereux Court near the Temple, standing in a lane named after the Devereux family of Essex.