Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE
Holborn and the Inns of Court
Strategically placed between the royal and political centre of Westminster
and the mercantile and financial might of the City, Holborn (pronounced
“Ho-bun”) became the hub of the English legal system in the thirteenth
century. Hostels, known as Inns of Court, were established where lawyers
could eat, sleep and study law. Hidden away from the general hubbub of
London, the Inns make for an interesting stroll, their archaic, cobbled
precincts exuding the rarefied atmosphere of an Oxbridge college, and
sheltering one of the city's oldest churches, the twelfth-century Temple
Church. Elsewhere, Holborn boasts two of London's most enjoyable small
museums: the Sir John Soane's Museum, with its architectural illusions and
eclectic array of curios, and the Hunterian Museum, home of freakish
medical curiosities.
