London Royal Courts of Justice & Inns of Court Walking Tour

Meet at Temple Station
and walk through London's legal quarter

Meet your guide outside Temple Underground Station for a walking tour of about 3 hours. Learn how this small area of London drove the development of English common law, and how that law spread to countries such as the USA, India, Pakistan, Africa and Australia.

Hear about people who worked and studied at the Inns of Court, including seven signatories of the US Declaration of Independence, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Mahatma Gandhi, Sir Francis Drake and Sir William Blackstone.

See the Temple Church, Middle Temple and Inner Temple

The Temple Church, built in 1162 and consecrated in 1185, was one of King John's bases during the Magna Carta negotiations. Middle Temple Hall, built in 1573, is regarded as a leading example of an Elizabethan building in central London.

Visit Inner Temple Hall and its garden (when open), which Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1 suggests was where the Wars of the Roses began. Your guide also tells you about the tradition of dining in hall, how lawyers travelled to the Westminster courts by rowing boat and later steam ferry, and how women fought for recognition in the legal profession.

Go inside the Royal Courts of Justice

Walk along Fleet Street to the Royal Courts of Justice, opened by Queen Victoria in 1882. Originally designed for 19 courtrooms, this grand Gothic Revival building now has about 100.

Finish at Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn

At Lincoln's Inn, which produced 15 prime ministers including Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, see the Old Hall (built around 1490) and the Chapel from the outside. It was also the setting of Charles Dickens' novel Bleak House. You'll also pass Staple Inn, one of London's finest Tudor timber-framed buildings.

At Gray's Inn, whose bomb-damaged hall (built in 1558) was restored with support from the American Bar Association, hear about its famous members and how Charles Dickens worked there as a clerk. The tour ends near Chancery Lane Underground Station.

※ Middle Temple Hall, Inner Temple Hall, Lincoln's Inn, Staple Inn and Gray's Inn are viewed from the outside.
※ Inner Temple Garden is visited only when open.