The four inns of court in London are organizations that barristers belong to, and their names are also used to refer to the areas of London they own. They are called Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln’s Inn and Gray’s Inn. To make this clearer, here’s a brief flash tour of three inns of court.
Transblawg
Weblog on German-English legal translation, no longer from Fürth
Interesting website that also comes out of the Bar Council’s own weblink.
Serjeant’s Inn has recently – after hundreds of years – been bought and brought back into the Inner Temple fold as a chambers and office building. The nearby Clifford’s Inn – the oldest Inn of Chancery dating back almost 700 years – has yet to be, as has Staple Inn, another lost Inn of Chancery off Holborn Circus.
There is hope yet. The first Master (Mistress?) of Revels of the Inner since Shakespeare’s time has just been re-installed to rival the one at the Middle Temple.
There are also some non-Barrister members of the Inns – like the Princess Royal, an Honorary Bencher of the Inner who often turns up to lectures in Hall.
All very quaint, ain’t it?