The present Inner Temple Hall is a crude, pseudo-Gothic structure, which was designed by Sydney Smirke, and was opened by the Princess Louise in 1870. It supplanted the restored and tinkered remains of the old Hall. For the ancient Refectory of the Knights Templars stood in the time of Henry VII. on the same site as this Hall, and does, indeed, form the nucleus of it.[44] The Clock Tower, at the East end of the Library, which forms one side of the nondescript Tanfield Court, perpetuates an ancient tower, which was surmounted by a turret built of chalk, rubble, and ragstone, like the Church, and carried a bell under a wooden cupola. It stood near to this spot, and was attached to the Treasurer’s house. The feeble architecture of the exterior is agreeably at variance with the fine interior of the Hall, with its open timber roof and handsome screen. Upon the panelled walls, like those of the Middle Temple Hall, are painted the coats of arms of past Treasurers and Readers, in perpetuation, as it were, of the old custom of the Knights Templars, who used to hang their shields upon the walls when they sat two by two at dinner in the old Hall, wherein, as the Accusers averred, the Novices of the Order were compelled to spit upon the Cross, to kiss an Idol with a black face and shining eyes, and to worship the Golden Head kept in the Treasury adjoining. The doors in the panelling at the East End lead now to nothing more thrilling than Parliament Chambers—‘a handsome set of rooms, the walls of which are covered with portraits and engravings of legal luminaries.’[45]
In the minstrel gallery hang some old drums and banners, which serve to remind us of the martial achievements of the Lawyers, when ‘forth they ride a-colonelling.’ Two very richly carved doors at the north and south entrances to the Hall, one of which bears the date 1575, are reasonably supposed to be surviving fragments of the great carved screen, said by Dugdale to have been erected in the Hall in 1574.
The four fine bronze statues of Knights Templars and Knights Hospitallers are by H. H. Armstead (1875). The Hall is rich in portraits. Beneath a large painting of Pegasus are portraits of King William III. and Queen Mary, of Queen Anne, George II., and Queen Caroline. Portraits of Sir Edward Coke and Sir Thomas Lyttleton, Sir Matthew Hale, Sir Randolph Carew, and Sir Simon Harcourt, among others, hang upon the walls.
The old Hall of this, as of the other Inns, was frequently the scene of Revels and Merry-making.[46] Here, as elsewhere, Christmas Feasts formed prominent incidents in the life of the Society, and one such has been described by Gerard Leigh (1576), when the guests were served ‘with tender meats, sweet fruits and dainty delicates confectioned with other curious cookery ... and at every course the Trumpeters blew the courageous blast of deadly War, with noise of drum and fyfe; with the sweet harmony of Violins, Sackbutts, Recorders and Cornetts, with other instruments of music, as it seemed Apollo’s harp had tuned their stroke. Thus the Hall was served after the most antient of the Island.’ And it was in the old Hall of the Inner Temple that the first performance of the first English tragedy took place in 1561. This was ‘Gorboduc; or Ferrex and Porrex,’ and it was written by two distinguished members of this Society: Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville. A hundred years later Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Lord Chancellor and Earl of Nottingham, ‘the Oracle of Impartial Justice,’ gave in this Hall the most magnificent ‘Reader’s Feast’ upon record.
King Charles came in his barge from Whitehall, with his Court, and was received at the Stairs by the Reader and the Lord Chief Justice in his scarlet robes. He passed into the Temple Garden through rows of Readers’ servants, clad in scarlet cloaks and white Tabba doubtlets, and the Gentlemen of the Society in their gowns, whilst music and violins sounded a welcome to His Majesty. The Duke of York was also present upon this occasion, and so delighted was he with the entertainment that he, together with Prince Rupert, was at once admitted to the Society, and presently became a Bencher.
Sir Heneage Finch was the most famous of a long line of distinguished members of that family who have been Benchers. It is characteristic of the Inner Temple that it has and always has had a tendency for members of the same families to supply the vacancies among the Benchers. The Pollocks, Wests, Wards, and Finches point back to a long roll of ancestors distinguished in the Law and the annals of the Temple. This tendency coincides with the aristocratic nature of the Society. For many centuries a candidate for Bencher was required to show at least three generations of ‘gentle blood,’ a regulation which affords a curious contrast to the more democratic nature of Oxford and Cambridge. In Elizabeth’s reign it was ordered that ‘none should be admitted of the Society, except he were of good parentage and not of ill-behaviour.’ Such another Inner Temple family was that of the Hares, who lived for generations in Hare Court, the south side of which was built by Nicholas Hare about 1570. Hare Court, together with the rooms once occupied by Chief Justice Jeffreys, has been recently rebuilt. A doubtful portrait of that ferocious Judge by Sir Peter Lely was presented to the Inn by Sir Harry Poland, K.C.
The exterior of the Library Building is not imposing. It contains on the ground and first floors the Parliament Chambers, offices, and lecture-rooms, and on the second floor a very fine library, admirably arranged in a room perfectly suited to the student.
Very early indications of a Library existing with chambers under it are found in the records. It stood at the west end of the Hall. A later building, apparently, at the east end of the Hall was afterwards used as the Library, and was rebuilt in 1680, after having been destroyed by gunpowder in 1678 in order to save the Hall from the fire in that year.
The north wing, upon the site of No. 2, Tanfield Court, was opened in 1882. A case containing a collection of ‘Serjeants’ Rings’ is of some interest. In the anteroom to the Parliament Chambers hangs a portrait of William Petyt, a former Treasurer of the House and Keeper of the Records at the Tower, who bequeathed his exceedingly valuable collection of historical documents, etc., to the Inn. A fine piece of carving by Grinling Gibbons, as it is supposed, which is placed in this anteroom also, bears the inscription ‘T. Thoma Walker Arm. A.D. 1705,’ and was the result of a payment of £20 5s. made by Sylvester Petyt, Principal of Barnard’s Inn and brother of William, as executor of the latter’s will.[47]
The narrow alley that leads from Fleet Street through Mitre Court and Mitre Buildings, gives little promise of the broad open expanse of gravel