Tour 3 - Chancery Lane to Holborn

For tour map,click here.

The Four Inns

Upon arriving at Chancery Lane, you come upon the black and white timbered facade of the Staple Inn with its lattice windows set back in various designed gables. The Inn dates back to 1576. Dickens references this historic inn in his last unfinished novel (1870) The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Walk through the arched passageway and you'll feel like a character in this book.

Continue through and over Furnival and on your right you'll come upon the iron gates of Barnard's Inn. Follow its passageways which lead to an inner sanctum where Dickens's Pip and Herbert Pocket resided in his novel Great Expectations.

Now back-track to Furnival Street and take a right turn onto Took's Court. This location was renamed by Dickens to "Cook's Court". It was at No. 15 where Mr. Snagsby lived and worked.

Continue your walk along Cursitor Street, turning right on Chancery Lane and then cross to the 16th century GateHouse of Lincoln's Inn, one of London's Four Inns of Court. Constructed of dark red brick, part of the original struture dates back to 1489.

Keeping the Cloisters to your right, walk into the gardens of New Square built in 1685. As you exit the gates, you come upon a structure on your right called New Hall which was built in 1843.

Now cross Serle Street into Lincoln's Inn Fields, London's largest square. Here is where the Gordon rioters gathered in Barnaby Rudge. Continue on and you'll arrive at the columned frontage of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Turn left into Portsmouth Street and you'll see "Ye Old Curiosity Shop", constructed back in 1567 and rumored to have been built from old ship timbers.

Lastly, back-track to Lincoln's Inn Fields, No. 58. This is the home of John Forster, Dickens's best friend and biographer. Continuing down the street we come to No. 65, the former home of William Marsden, founder of both the Royal Free and Royal Marsden Hospitals. Continue clockwise and pause outside the Sir John Sloane Museum at No. 13. Sir John was the architect of the Bank of England.

 

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