Holborn: Inns of Court: Gray's Inn Chapel

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W. J. Loftie, adding to the incomplete work of Sir Walter Besant, in The Fascination of London, published in 1903, continues his survey of Holborn's Inns of Court with this look at Gray's Inn Chapel:

The chief entrance is by the archway in Holborn.

In 1867 the old brick arch was beplastered, obliterating a reminiscence of Dickens, who makes David Copperfield and Dora lodge over it.

A narrow road leads into South Square, the north side of which is formed by the hall and library.

The houses round the east and south sides are of uniform design, with handsome doorways. The hall has been much "restored," but was originally built in the reign of Queen Mary.

It has a modern Gothic porch, carved with the griffin, which forms the coat armour of the Inn.

The interior of the hall has been renovated, having been much injured in 1828, when the exterior was covered with stucco.

The brick front is again visible, and the panelling and roof within are of carved oak.

There are coats of arms in the windows, and on the walls hang portraits of Charles I, Charles II, James II, and the two Bacons - father and son - Sir Nicholas and Viscount St. Albans, who are the chief legal luminaries of the "ancient and honourable society."

The library, modern, adjoins on the east, and contains a collection of important records and printed books on law.

Passing through an arch at the western end of the hall, we enter Gray's Inn Square, formerly Chapel Court.

The chapel is close to the library on the north side, and opens into Gray's Inn Square.

This court was probably open on the north side to the fields before the reign of Charles II.

Some of the buildings surrounding it are in a good Queen Anne style, and some have the cross-mullioned windows of a still earlier period.

The exterior of the chapel is covered with stucco.

The interior, which is very small - there being only seating for a congregation of about one hundred - was carefully examined in 1900, when a proposal was made to build a new chapel.

The Gothic windows, walled up by the library to the south, came to light, and there seems some probability that the building is mainly that of Lord Grey's chantry of 1315.

Some improvements and repairs to the interior have saved the little chapel for the present.

There are no monuments visible, but four Archbishops of Canterbury who were connected with the Inn are commemorated in the east window.

They were Whitgift (1583-1604), Juxon (1660-1663), Wake (1715-1737), Laud (1633-1645), and in the centre Becket, whose only claim to be in such a goodly company appears to be that a window "gloriously painted," with the figure of St. Thomas of London, was destroyed by Edward Hall, the Reader, in 1539, according to the King's injunctions.

A subsequent window, showing our Lord on the Mount, had long disappeared, and some heraldry was all the east end of the chapel could boast.

Next: Holborn: Inns of Court: Gray's Inn Eminent Members