Venue Type & Location
Performance Spaces
Overview
Located on the E side of the Temple Liberty on a prestigious site near the River Thames, the entrance to Inner Temple was and remains on the S side of Fleet Street.
Part of the medieval Temple land formed a monastery and part remained unconsecrated. The monastic buildings of the Knights Templar lay around the present Church Court (now called Cloisters), with the refectory on the site of the present Inner Temple Hall. Another hall lay on or somewhat to the E of Middle Temple Lane and housed the lay brethren and other laymen.
Little remains of the medieval and Tudor buildings, mostly destroyed by 17th c. fires and 20th c. bombing. The medieval hall was rebuilt in the 19th c. but the buttery at the W end, some antiquarian images and a couple of Elizabethan doors provide glimpses of its architectural design.
Performance History
Numerous appearances by royal acting troupes are recorded at the Inner Temple in the early 17th c.
Current Status
History of the Venue
12th c. Knights Templar occupied the site.
1185 Temple Church dedicated.
1312 Order of the Knights Templar suppressed.
1324 Property acquired by the Order of St John.
by 1346 Some buildings in the Temple Liberty leased to law students who had the use of the Temple church as their chapel. The medieval hall was probably built at this time.
1540 Temple buildings possessed by the Crown at the Dissolution.
1574 New carved screen added to the hall (Girouard, 'Inns of Court' 143).
1608 Freehold granted to the Benchers of the Temple.
1610--11 Gateway at N end of the site built, facing Fleet Street.
1666 E side of the Inner Temple precinct destroyed during the Great Fire; the hall survived.
1678--9 Another fire destroyed the Cloisters and library and narrowly avoided the hall though the E end was damaged.
1680 Library and E end wall of the hall rebuilt. New screen added at the W end of the hall. Chambers rebuilt in the same period.
ca. 1740 S facade of the hall renovated in classical style.
1748 Gateway to Fleet Street rebuilt.
early 19th c. Hall in decayed condition, needing repair.
19th c. Extensive new buildings added.
1868--70 Hall demolished as well as 2 adjacent outer butteries. New hall designed by Sydney Smirke completed.
1941 Bombing during World War II destroyed much of the Inner Temple.
1952--5 Hall rebuilt in neo-Georgian style.
Record Source
REED Inns of Court 1.182, 186, 191, 209, 215, 217, 226, 228, 230, 232, 243, 327, 339, 345--6, 352, 359; 2.581
Patrons who owned this venue
[No data found.]
Bibliographic Sources
- Bradley, Simon, and Nikolaus Pevsner. London I: The City of London. London: Penguin Books, 1997
- Burkhart, Robert E. ‘The Playing Space in the Halls of the Inns of Court.'. South Atlantic Review 56.4 (1991): 1--5.
- Burkhart, Robert E. 'The Surviving Shakespearean Playhouses: The Halls of the Inns of Court and the Excavation of the Rose.'. Theatre History Studies 12 (1992): 173--96.
- Girouard, Mark. 'The halls of the Elizabethan and early Stuart Inns of Court'. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2011 The Intellectual and Cultural World of the Early Modern Inns of Court 138--53.
- Hart, E.A.P. The Hall of the Inner Temple. London: Sweet & Maxwell, Limited, 1952
- Herbert, W. Antiquities of the Inns of Court and Chancery. London: npub, 1804
- Ireland, Samuel. Picturesque Views, with an Historical Account of the Inns of Court, in London and Westminster. London: R. Faulder and J. Egerton, 1800
- Knight, Charles. London. 6 vols. London: Charles Knight & Co., 1843
- Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England. An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in London. 5 vols. London: HMSO, 1924--30
- Whitted, Brent E. ‘Transforming the (Common)place: The Performance of William Browne's Ulysses and Circe in Inner Temple Hall.'. Theatre History Studies 19 (1999): 151--66.
- Williamson, J. Bruce. The History of the Temple, London. London: John Murray, 1924