Gray's Inn one of the four Inns of Court with its spacious gardens and its sober courts is a reminder of the reign of King Edward III. The Hall was built in 1560 and the gardens were laid out three centuries ago, the walks being planned by Francis Bacon.
In Fox Court, which is off Gray's Inn Road close by Holborn, the Countess of Macclesfield lived, and here, on the south side, her famous son Richard Savage the poet was born in 1697. His father was Lord Rivers, but Savage was never cared for by him and was treated with gross neglect by his mother. His life was a dissipated one and he once killed a man in a drunken brawl for which he was sentenced to death but afterwards pardoned. His best poem is "The Bastard," in which he execrated his own mother the Countess for the illegitimacy of his birth. He died in 1743 in a Bristol jail to which he had been sent for debt.
Close by, at the Gray's Inn Road corner of Holborn, is the crossing that was swept by the poor Jo of Dickens' "Bleak House."
In Brooke Street, near at hand, the house No. 39, is famous as standing on the site of the lodging house where Thomas Chatterton ended his brief and remarkable career. Chatterton was born in Bristol, the son of a poor widow. He received some education at a charity school but otherwise was self-taught. In the few years of his life he developed a poetic quality wonderful even in an age noted for literary excellence. He was seventeen years old when in 1769 he came to London where he met great discouragement. He lived in the garret of the obscure Brooke Street lodging and here on August 24th, 1770, in dire want, among strangers, literally starving, he died of poison self-administered. He was buried in the pauper burial ground adjoining a workhouse in Shoe Lane.
Since 1688 the present church of St. Andrew's has stood at the western end of Holborn Viaduct. It is a Wren building set up where an older church was once. The poet Richard Savage was baptised here, and Hazlitt the essayist was here married having for best man Charles Lamb.
Quaint and quiet and fascinating in its strong old age the cloister of St. Etheldreda's just beyond the busy roar of Holborn Circus is a survival of the famous palace of the bishops of Ely. This cloister is in part the same as that in which Henry VIII. first met Cranmer, and here John of Gaunt father of Henry IV. died in 1399. Ely Place of to-day is named for the old palace.
In narrow Mitre Court, connecting Ely Place with Hatton Gardens, set in the wall of a public house is the "Sign of the Mitre," bearing date of 1546. The present house stands on the site of the main entrance to the palace.