Pronounced 'hoe bern', this area is home to the distinctive Inns of Court: historic and beautiful sets of buildings where barristers have resided since the 13th century. A walk through one of these Inns is often like stepping back in time, especially if you happen upon a barrister in his obligatory eighteenth century court attire. The nature and atmosphere of these places is summed up by the story of a recent visitor who was walking through the gas lit courtyards on a dark Winter's night when out of the mist came a gaggle of elderly judges in their full bottomed wigs. They were deep in conversation and all he heard as they passed was one saying to another "... and ninethly...!"
Each of the four Inns of Court has a grand hall where formal dinners and other entertainments are arranged for the legal profession. Bizarrely, one condition of becoming a qualified barrister requires the apprentice to attend a minimum number of dinners during his period as a trainee! The hall at Middle Temple witnessed the opening night of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night in 1602 and contains a table made from the wood of Sir Francis Drake's ship. Gray's Inn Hall on the other hand saw the premiere of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors in 1594.
The 12th century Temple Church is well worth a look as is the fascinating and under visited Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn with its eccentric collections of paraphernalia. Even more bizarre is the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of Surgeons. Here you'll find pickled exhibits of human remains, skeletons of midgets and giants, the examination couch used by Lister (who discovered antiseptic), and even human teeth from the battlefield of Waterloo!
Nearest Underground stops: Holborn, Chancery Lane