Inns of Court; London (England) -- Description and travel
The picturesque Queen Anne buildings of the Inn have disappeared, and in
their place some more pretentious flats and offices have been erected.
They looked out, until the beginning of 1909, upon a green open space,
some two acres in extent, bounded by the Law Courts, Carey Street, and
the Strand. A road runs under the Judges’ Rooms in the Law Courts from
the Strand to a flight of steps, which lead up to Carey Street beneath
ornamental arches. This space was intended to be covered by the Law
Courts, according to the original design. But the estimates were cut
down, and the block which was meant to cover this space was sacrificed.
The inconvenience which has resulted for lawyers and litigants ever
since has been the gain of the less litigious public. For, thanks to the
generosity of the late Mr. W. H. Smith, the vacant place was laid out as
a lawn and flower-garden, and has long formed a refreshing strip of
greensward in the heart of this busy centre of London. Two-thirds of it
have now been sacrificed, for the pressing need of more accommodation is
at last to be met by the extension of the Law Courts, and the erection
of four new Courts, which have been begun at the north-west end of this
plot. The new building, designed to harmonize with Street’s somewhat
bastard Gothic building, will be connected with it by a bridge of three
arches spanning the walk between Carey Street and the Strand.
Clifford’s Inn still survives. It can be approached either from Chancery
Lane, through Serjeants’ Inn, from Fetter Lane, or from Fleet Street.
Out of the roar and bustle of that busy thoroughfare a passage leads up
past the porch of St. Dunstan’s Church. On the north side of a tiny
Court, from which an archway leads into a larger one, stands a tiny
Hall, with a large clock and windows full of heraldic glass, amongst
which the chequers of the Cliffords are conspicuous. This Hall in its
present shape, re-cased and transmogrified, dates from 1797, but a
fourteenth-century arch at the end of it points to pristine beauty.
A few separate houses are dotted irregularly about on the opposite
side. But the chief charm of Clifford’s Inn lies in the green grass
space and shady trees, a garden bounded by railings, and on two sides by
old brick buildings, with deep cornices and tiled roofs, which forms so
grateful a view from the interior of the Record Office, or from the
Court of Serjeants’ Inn.
The Inn is called after Robert de Clifford, whose widow (1344) let the
messuage to students of the law for £10 per annum. It was acquired by
the Society at a rental of £4 towards the end of the fifteenth century.
The Society was composed of the Principal and Rulers, and the Juniors or
‘Kentish Men.’ It would be of interest, if for no other reason, because
Coke and Selden once resided here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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