The Inns of Court

Holborn underground station, London (main exit, debouches onto Kingsway)

Guided by Karen or Molly or Shaughan

Adult: £20 · Students & Seniors: £15 · Children: £5

Walk Times

Day	Walk Type	Start Time	End Time
Monday	Weekly	2 pm	4 pm	Winter Summer	Reserve Online
Wednesday	Weekly	11 am	1 pm	Winter Summer	Reserve Online

N.B. this walk will not take place on the following dates:

25-08-2025 24-12-2025 29-12-2025 31-12-2025

N.B. See also our Friday VIP Lawyer-guided Inns of Court Walk (March 28, April 4, April 11 and then from May 2 almost every Friday through late October). Full disclosure, it’s more expensive and has to be booked and pre-paid. That’s the downside. The upside is, yes, it’s always lawyer-guided and it’s a small, exclusive group (limited numbers). Ergo the VIP appellation.

“A lawyer is a learned gentleman who rescues your estate from your enemies and keeps it himself” Henry Brougham*

Short read: Magic casement into an olde worlde…

Shaughan read: “My favourite walk of all. Quiet gardens, a truly eclectic architectural rattle-bag and a glorious roll-call of British eccentrics: the Wits, the Windbags and Wayward Wigs. The cream of English intellect as it battles over Wives, Writs, Wills, Widows and Wrecks. Find out what happened when Tony met Cherie! Meet Rumpole! And as these are private grounds – a privilege to be able to show you round m’lud. And hear the verdict at the end in the High Court.” Thus spake Guide Shaughan.

And Guide Shaughan spake (speaks) here as well: Legal London Podcast 1. And here: Legal London Podcast 2.

Long read: The Inns of Court – habitat of the wigged and gowned English barrister – could pass for a collection of Oxford and Cambridge colleges right in the heart of London. They’re a warren of cloisters, courtyards, and passageways set amongst some of the best gardens in London.

So: ancient rites and customs, high drama, colourful characters, and matters of life and death amid delightful surroundings. It’s a rich confection, making this the prettiest and most historical of our central London walks. Welcome to London’s legal enclave.

INNS OF COURT TOUR – THE PRACTICALS

Legal & Illegal London – the Inns of Court takes place at 2 pm every Monday and at 11 am every Wednesday.   

The meeting point is just outside the main exit of Holborn Tube. 

Here’s a photo of the meeting point when you get to the top of the escalator at Holborn Tube. The ticket barrier is straight ahead of you. Ten yards beyond the ticket barrier you can see a blue-green information kiosk and a red kiosk advertising a publication called The Week. And between them – just visible in the photograph – is a (soon to be extinct) pay telephone booth. Right there, between those two kiosks, is the meeting point.

The main exit is on Kingsway. Holborn Tube, which is on the corner of Kingsway and High Holborn, has two exits. The side exit goes out onto High Holborn. The main exit – the one you want – goes out onto Kingsway. The guide will be standing just outside the main exit, the Kingsway exit, holding up copies of the distinctive white London Walks leaflet. If you take the Tube to Holborn  Tube Station go up the escalator, go through the ticket barrier and go straight ahead. You’ll come out onto Kingsway, right where you need to be to meet the guide.

On Mondays the walk is guided by Shaughan. On Wednesdays it’s guided by Karen or Molly.

The walk ends at or just over the way from the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, near Temple   Tube. 

 

IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THE GUIDING

Don’t just take it from us…

INNS OF COURT VIRTUAL TOURS

We do two very different ones. Click here to read about Jackie’s. And click here to hear her guiding a bit of it.

And click here to read about Richard III’s. And click here to hear Richard guiding his.

LONDON WALKS VIDEO

Want a preview of the Inns of Court walk? Watch this little handheld video. It’ll give you a pretty good idea of the “like nowhere else” territory the walk explores – where it goes, the doors it opens, the secret little passageways and courtyards it threads its way through.

LONDON WALKS REVIEWS

*Barrister and statesman Henry Brougham (1778 – 1868) was a member of Lincoln’s Inn. Elected to Parliament in 1810, he became Lord High Chancellor and played a prominent role in passing the 1832 Reform Act and the Slavery Abolition Act. One of the chief advisers to Queen Caroline of Brunswick, the estranged wife of George, Prince of Wales, the Prince Regent and future George IV, it was suggested to Brougham that he hold back in his vigorous defense of the Princess for the sake of the country. (Her opponents wanted her stripped of her Royal title on the grounds of adultery.) Brougham responded with a now-famous speech in the House of Lords

An advocate, in the discharge of his duty, knows but one person in all the world, and that person is his client. To save that client by all means and expedients, and at all hazards and costs to other persons, and amongst them, to himself, is his first and only duty; and in performing this duty he must not regard the alarm, the torments, the destruction which he may bring upon others. Separating the duty of a patriot from that of an advocate, he must go on reckless of consequences, though it should be his unhappy fate to involve his country in confusion.

The speech has since become legendary among defence lawyers for the principle of zealously advocating for one’s client.