Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
By 1300, the Knights Templar's mission of protecting pilgrims had become a corrupt
“protection” racket, and they'd grown rich loaning money to kings and popes. Those same
kings and popes condemned the monks as heretics and sodomites, and confiscated their
lands (1312). The Temple Church was rented to lawyers, who built the Inns of Court
around it.
•
Abutting, surrounding, and extending from the Temple Church is a vast complex of build-
ings covering a full city block between the Strand/Fleet Street and the Thames, known col-
lectively as...
The Inns of Court
Wander through the peaceful maze of buildings, courtyards, narrow lanes, nooks, gardens,
fountains, and century-old gas lamps, where lawyers take a break from the Royal Courts.
The complex is a self-contained city of lawyers, with offices, lodgings, courtrooms,
chapels, and dining halls. Law students must live here (and are even required to eat a num-
ber of meals on the premises) to complete their legal internship.
