Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
9
where Shakespeare set the fictional scene of the plucking of red and white roses in
Henry VI Part One
.
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand • Mon-Fri 9.30am-4.30pm; no cameras allowed • Free • Guided tours Mon-Fri • £12 •
T
020 7947 6000 •
!
Temple
On the north side of the Strand, the
Royal Courts of Justice
are home to the Court of
Appeal and the High Court, where the most important civil cases are tried (criminal
cases are heard at the Old Bailey). The main portal and steps of this daunting Gothic
Revival complex, designed in the 1870s, often features in the news, as this is also where
libel disputes and high profile divorce cases are heard. In the intimidating Main Hall,
where bewigged barristers are busy on their mobiles, you can pick up a plan and a short
guide to the complex, while the glass cabinets in the centre of the hall list which cases
are being heard and where. In the minstrels' gallery, there's a small exhibition on the
history of legal dress codes.
Lincoln's Inn Fields
To the north of the Law Courts lies
Lincoln's Inn Fields
, London's largest square.
Originally simply pasture land and a playground for Lincoln's Inn students, it was used
as a place of execution in Tudor times, would-be assassin Anthony Babington and his
Catholic accomplices being hanged, drawn and quartered here for high treason in
1586. Laid out in the early 1640s, the square's most arresting statue is that of Margaret
MacDonald (wife of the first Labour prime minister Ramsay MacDonald, who lived
and died at no. 3), amid a brood of nine children (she herself had six), commemorating
her social work among the young. In the southwest corner of the square is one of
London's few surviving timber-framed buildings, the sixteenth-century
Old Curiosity
Shop
in Portsmouth Street (currently a shoe shop), which claims to be the inspiration
for Dickens' sentimental tale of the same name.
Hunterian Museum
Lincoln's Inn Fields • Tues-Sat 10am-5pm • Free •
T
020 7869 6560,
W
rcseng.ac.uk •
!
Holborn
he
Hunterian Museum
is on the first floor of the imposing Royal College of Surgeons
building on the south side of Lincoln's Inn Fields. First opened in 1813, the museum
contains the unique specimen collection of the surgeon-scientist John Hunter (1728-93).
The centrepiece of the museum is the Crystal Gallery, a wall of jars of pickled skeletons
and body pieces - from the gall bladder of a puffer fish to the thyroid of a dromedary
- prepared by Hunter himself. Among the most prized exhibits are the skeleton of the
“Irish giant”, Charles Byrne (1761-83), who was seven feet ten inches tall, and the
Sicilian dwarf Caroline Crachami (1815-24), who stood at only one foot ten and a
half inches when she died at the age of 9. You'll find Crachami in the McCrae Gallery,
where a series of gruesome dental instruments herald the odontological collection.
Upstairs, you can have a go at simulated minimal-access surgery, and examine Joseph
Lister's cumbersome carbolic-acid spray machine, known as the “donkey engine”, with
which he pioneered antiseptic surgery, performing operations obscured in a cloud of
phenol (he even conducted a foggy operation on Queen Victoria - who had an abscess
in the royal armpit - accidentally spraying her in the face in the process).
Sir John Soane's Museum
13 Lincoln's Inn Fields • Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, candle-lit eve first Tues of month 6-9pm (the museum is very popular and you may have to
queue) • Free • Guided tours Tues & Fri 11.30am, Wed & Thurs 3.30pm, Sat 11am; £10 •
T
020 7405 2107,
W
soane.org •
!
Holborn
A group of buildings on the north side of the square houses the fascinating
Sir John
Soane's Museum
. Soane (1753-1837), a bricklayer's son who rose to be architect of
the Bank of England, gradually bought up three adjoining Georgian properties here
