£55.50 (Non JG member)
Overview
Between royalty at Westminster & commerce in the City, mediaeval lawyers found a quiet niche in which to practise theircraft. They’re still here in a part of London hidden to most visitors. Come on a fascinating journey as we visit Legal London. Arrive on Fleet Street at 11am to meet our Blue Badge Guide to begin the day with coffee & biscuits (included in tour price). During the morning we are on foot to trace the history and peculiar practices of English law in an area of London that remains hidden to most visitors. We visit Lincoln’s Inn where no one should ask for whom the bell tolls, Staple Inn where wool was weighed and taxed before the Great Fire and end up in Carey Street the former home of the Bankruptcy Courts. We stop for free time to buy lunch on Fleet Street which gives some extra time to enjoy the RAF church of St Clement Danes (oranges & lemons say the bells…) and the rather wonderful Twinings Tea shop -London’s oldest retail premises and smallest shop front. In the afternoon we visit the Royal Courts of Justice otherwise known as the High Court and explore Inner and Middle Temple where Rumpole of the Bailey had his chamber. We go inside the spectacular round church of the Knights Templar to see the life size stone tomb effigies of the fighting monks.