Paper Buildings are a set of chambers located in the Inner Temple in Temple, London. They were initially constructed in 1609. [1] Paper Buildings appear in A Tale of Two Cities and Barnaby Rudge . [2]
On 6 March 1838, about twenty sets of chambers were destroyed, including some valuable libraries, important documents and so forth. The fire originated in the chambers of W. H. Maule MP. [3]
Paper Buildings are on the site of Heyward's Buildings, constructed in 1610. [4] The "paper" part of the name comes from the fact that they were built from timber, lath and plaster, a construction method known as "paperwork". A fire in 1838 destroyed three of the buildings, which were immediately replaced with a design by Robert Smirke, with Sydney Smirke later adding two more buildings. [5] A famous resident of (at the time) Heyward's Buildings was John Selden, who was one of the original tenants and shared a set of chambers with Heyward himself. [6]
John Galsworthy had chambers here from November 1894, where he wrote a short story called "Dick Denver's Idea", which was his first work of fiction. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] MI5 was located here from 21 February 1911. [13]
The Common Bail Office [14] and The King's Bench Office [15] were located here.