Staple Inn is a part-Tudor building on the south side of High Holborn street in the City of London, London, England. Located near Chancery Lane tube station, it is used as the London venue for meetings of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, and is the last surviving Inn of Chancery. It was designated a Grade I listed building in 1974. [1]
It was originally attached to Gray's Inn, which is one of the four Inns of Court. The Inns of Chancery fell into decay in the 19th century. All of them were dissolved, and most were demolished. Staple Inn is the only one which survives largely intact. It was an extra-parochial area until 1858 and then a civil parish. It became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn in 1900 and was abolished in 1930. [2]
On 1 April 1994, boundary changes meant that the Inn was transferred from the London Borough of Camden to the City of London (and the City ward of Farringdon Without).
It was the model for the fictitious Inn of Court "Bacon's Inn" in Arthur Moore's 1904 novel Archers of the Long Bow. The ancient switch-tailed double pump referred to was replaced in 1937 by a mock single pump, to mark the site. [3]
Staple Inn dates from 1585. The building was once the wool staple, where wool was weighed and taxed. It survived the Great Fire of London, was extensively damaged by a Nazi German Luftwaffe aerial bomb in 1944 but was subsequently restored. It has a distinctive timber-framed façade, cruck roof and an internal courtyard.
The historic interiors include a great hall, used by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. The ground-floor street frontage is let to shops and restaurants, required to use plainer signage than they do on less sensitive buildings. For a time, the building appeared on the packaging of Old Holborn tobacco.
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions.
Holborn is a district in central London, which covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part of the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London.
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn. It is located in the wider Temple area of London, near the Royal Courts of Justice, and within the City of London. As a liberty, it functions largely as an independent local government authority.
Barnard's Inn is a former Inn of Chancery in Holborn, London. It is now the home of Gresham College, an institution of higher learning established in 1597 that hosts public lectures.
Chancery Lane is a London Underground station on the Central Line between Holborn and The City in Central London, England. It has entrances within both the London Borough of Camden and the City of London. It opened in 1900 and takes its name from the nearby Chancery Lane.
The Metropolitan Borough of Holborn was a metropolitan borough in the County of London between 1900 and 1965, when it was amalgamated with the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras and the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead to form the London Borough of Camden.
High Holborn is a street in Holborn and Farringdon Without, Central London, which forms a part of the A40 route from London to Fishguard. It starts in the west at the eastern end of St Giles High Street and runs past the Kingsway and Southampton Row, becoming Holborn at its eastern junction with Gray's Inn Road. The western stretch, as far as Drury Lane, was formerly known as Broad Street. On High Holborn, traffic flows one-way westbound from its junction with Drake Street to its western end, and flows both ways for the remainder.
The WC postcode area, also known as the London WC postcode area, is a group of postcode districts in central London, England. The area covered is of high density development, and includes parts of the City of Westminster and the London Boroughs of Camden and Islington, plus a very small part of the City of London.
Bleeding Heart Yard is a cobbled courtyard off Greville Street in the Holborn area of the London Borough of Camden. The courtyard is probably named after a 16th-century inn sign dating back to the Reformation that was displayed on a pub called the Bleeding Heart in nearby Charles Street. The inn sign showed the heart of the Virgin Mary pierced by five swords.
The Inns of Chancery or Hospida Cancellarie were a group of buildings and legal institutions in London initially attached to the Inns of Court and used as offices for the clerks of chancery, from which they drew their name. Existing from at least 1344, the Inns gradually changed their purpose, and became both the offices and accommodation for solicitors and a place of initial training for barristers.
Gray's Inn Road is an important road in Central London, located in the London Borough of Camden. The road begins at the City of London boundary, passes north through the Holborn and King's Cross districts and terminates at King's Cross railway station.
Furnival's Inn was an Inn of Chancery which formerly stood on the site of the present Holborn Bars building in Holborn, London, England.
Chancery Lane is a one-way street situated in the ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. It has formed the western boundary of the City since 1994, having previously been divided between the City of Westminster and the London Borough of Camden. The route originated as a 'new lane' created by the Knights Templar from their original 'old Temple' on the site of the present Southampton Buildings on Holborn, in order to access to their newly acquired property to the south of Fleet Street sometime before 1161.
Thavie's Inn was a former Inn of Chancery, associated with Lincoln's Inn, established at Holborn, near the site of the present side street and office block still known as Thavies Inn Buildings. Thavie's Inn is one of the earliest Inns of Chancery on record, both by date of establishment and dissolution. It remains a well-known City of London landmark, where Lloyd's Bank is situated, on the opposite side of Holborn Circus from Ely Place.
Holborn and Covent Garden is a ward of the London borough of Camden, in the United Kingdom. As the name suggests, it covers the parts of Holborn and Covent Garden that lie in Camden; the eastern part of Holborn lies in the City of London and the southern part of Covent Garden lies in the City of Westminster. For elections to Parliament, Holborn and Covent Garden is part of Holborn and St Pancras.
Lyon's Inn was one of the Inns of Chancery attached to London's Inner Temple. Founded some time during or before the reign of Henry V, the Inn educated lawyers including Edward Coke and John Selden, although it was never one of the larger Inns. It eventually developed into an institution of disrepute rather than of respect, and by the time it was dissolved in 1863 it was inhabited by only the worst lawyers.
The London Borough of Camden is a London borough in Inner London, England. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies 1.4 mi (2.3 km) north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the area of the former boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and St Pancras, which prior to its establishment had comprised part of the historic County of London.
The Society for Photographing Relics of Old London was founded in 1875 in London, England, initially with the purpose of recording the Oxford Arms, a traditional galleried public house on Warwick Lane that was to be demolished as part of the redevelopment of the Old Bailey.
The Royal Commission on the Inns of Court carried out an investigation into the Inns of Court and associated Inns of Chancery between 1854 and 1855. The inns were medieval guild-like institutions that provided accommodation for lawyers and had developed gradually into centres for legal education. All barristers in the country had to be a member of one of the inns. It included many of the leading lawyers and jurists of the time. The commission found many of the inns, particularly the Inns of Chancery, were ineffective at educating students and recommended the creation of a single university of law. Steps were taken to accomplish this and a parliamentary bill was prepared but it was never achieved. The commission did, however, have an influence on legal education for decades and was a factor in the establishment of modern law schools at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and London.
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