Inns of Chancery: Thavie's Inn

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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 with a look at Thavie's Inn:

Returning to Holborn, from whence we have deviated, we come across Bartlett's Buildings, described by Strype as a very handsome, spacious place very well inhabited.

Thavie's Inn bears the name of the vanished Inn of Chancery.

Here was originally the house of an armourer called John Thavie, who, by will dated 1348, devised it with three shops for the repair and maintenance of St. Andrew's Church.

It was bought for an Inn of Chancery by Lincoln's Inn in the reign of Edward III.

It is curious how persistently the old names have adhered to these places. It was sold by Lincoln's Inn in 1771, and afterwards burnt down. The houses here are chiefly inhabited by jewellers, opticians, and earthenware merchants. There are a couple of private hotels.

In St. Andrew's Street are the Rectory and Court-house, rebuilt from the designs of S. S. Teulon in yellow brick.

The buildings form a quadrangle, with a wall and one side of the church enclosing a small garden.

In the Court-house is a handsome oak overmantle, black with age, which was brought here from the old Court-house in St. Andrew's Court, pulled down in the construction of St. Andrew's Street and Holborn Viaduct in 1869.

Holborn Circus was formed in connection with the approaches to the Viaduct.

In the centre there is an equestrian statue of the Prince Consort in bronze, by C. Bacon.

This was presented by an anonymous donor, and the Corporation voted £2,000 for erecting a suitable pedestal for it.

The whole was put up in 1874, two years after the completion of the Circus.

On the north and south sides are bas-reliefs, and on the east and west statues of draped female figures seated.

Next: St Andrew's Church