London - Temple

The Temple is a quiet and secluded corner of London, an oasis of pleasant gardens and attractive Georgian buildings. Dickens caught its atmosphere in "Barnaby Rudge": "There are, still, worse places than the Temple, on a sultry day, for basking in the sun, or resting idly in the shade. There is yet a drowsiness in its courts, and a dreamy dullness in its trees and gardens; and those who pace its lanes and squares may yet hear the echoes of their footsteps on the sounding stones, and read upon its gates in passing from the tumult of the Strand or Fleet Street, `Who enters here leaves noise behind.' There is still the plash of falling water in fair Fountain Court ..." In the 12th and 13th centuries the Temple was the headquarters in England of the order of Knights Templars, founded in Jerusalem in 1119. After the dissolution of the order in 1312 the property fell to the Crown; then in 1324 it was granted to the Knights of St John, who later in the century leased it to a group of professors of the common law. Since then the Temple has remained in the hands of the legal profession, housing two of the four Inns of Court which admit lawyers to practice as barristers in the English courts. It is in convenient proximity to the High Court of Justice on the north side of Fleet Street.