Gray's Inn

“ After leaving Lincoln's Inn, we looked at Gray's Inn, which is a great, quiet domain, quadrangle beyond quadrangle, close beside Holborn, and a large space of greensward enclosed within it. It is very strange to find so much of ancient quietude right in the monster city's very jaws, which yet the monster shall not eat up,—right in its very belly, indeed, which yet, in all these ages, it shall not digest and convert into the same substance as the rest of its bustling streets. ”

“ But the quiet of the Temple--Gray's Inn and Clifford's Inn lie north of the Griffin and beyond our story--is an illusive quiet; the quiet of good manners concealing busyness. If you watch the faces of the men who walk those graveled courtyards, you will see them as obsessed by thought as the faces of any merchant in the moneyed City. ”

“ Gray’s Inn Road forms the eastern boundary of Gray’s Inn. Verulam Buildings, Gray’s Inn, facing Gray’s Inn Road, received this title in honour of Lord Bacon, who was created Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans. Furnival Street, on the east side of Holborn Bars, owes its name to Furnival’s Inn, which it faces. Until quite recently this street was designated Castle Street, from the old “Castle Inn,” whose site it covers. ”

“ Gray’s Inn thenceforth paid the old rent to him and his heirs, until, in 1733, the{142} Benchers bought the freehold of the property from them. It is now the absolute legal property of the Society of Gray’s Inn.
By the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Gray’s Inn had risen into great popularity. The Inns of Court now formed one of the leading Universities of England—‘the noblest nurseries of humanity and liberty in the Kingdom,’ Ben Jonson declared. And chief among the Colleges of Law, with almost double the number of students in any other Inn, stood Gray’s Inn. ”

“ That seems a good title. And all about Gray's Inn! Now, I like Gray's Inn—a most excellent place; everyone connected with it great friends of mine. And writing of Gray's Inn, that reminds me—Good gracious! ”

“ Two students slept in a bed and Coke and Littleton are said to have been at one time bed-fellows.
Gray's Inn Gardens was one of the most pleasant places in London in the old days long agone, and during the reign of Charles I., it was frequented as a place of assignation. The principal entrance to Gray's Inn is from Holborn by a gate [Pg 520] way, a fine specimen of brick-work of 1542. The hall of Lincoln's Inn has an open oak roof, divided into seven bays by gothic arched ribs, the spandrils and pendants richly carved; in the centre is an open louvre, which is pinnacled externally. ”

“ The fourth of the great Inns of Court—Gray’s Inn—derived its name from the noble family of the Greys of Wilton, having been originally their dwelling, just as Lincoln’s Inn had been the dwelling of an Earl of Lincoln, and several of the Inns of Chancery were originally the homes of other well-known personages. The society seems first to have used the arms of the Grey family ”

“ Gray's Inn is a place of great antiquity: it was originally the residence of the Lord Grays, from the year 1315, when John, the son of Reginold de Grey, resided here, till the latter end of the reign of Henry the Seventh, when it was sold, by Edmund Lord Grey, of Wilton, to Hugh Dennys, Esq., by the name of Portpole ”

“ It was apparently in connection with this play that Bacon, being then Reader of Gray’s Inn, wrote to Lord Burleigh as follows: ‘There are a dozen gentlemen of Gray’s Inn that, out of the honour which they bear to your Lordship and my Lord Chamberlain, to whom at their last masque they were so much bounden, are ready to furnish a masque: wishing it were in their power to perform it according to their minds.’ [65]
The Benchers and Students of Gray’s Inn indulged in the Christmas Saturnalia of Masques and Revels with as great, or even greater, zest than the other Societies of Lawyers. ”

“ Yelverton entered Gray’s Inn in 1552. He is mentioned as a poet in Jasper Heywood’s verses before Thomas Newton’s translation (1560) of Seneca’s Thyestes, and wrote an epilogue to the Gray’s Inn Jocasta of Gascoigne (q.v.) and Kinwelmershe in 1566. He also helped to devise the dumb-shows for the Gray’s Inn Misfortunes of Arthur of Thomas Hughes (q.v.) ”

“ An inn or public sign, denoting that the house contained a vinery.
Grass Widow. A married woman separated from her husband, but not divorced. In the eyes of the world she passes for a widow by grace of courtesy. The 122correct description is, therefore, a “Grace Widow.” The corruption came about quite easily.
Grays. Anciently the estate of the noble family who gave their name to Gray’s Inn, their town mansion. Lady Jane Grey came of this stock.
Gray’s Inn. The Inn or mansion of the Earls Gray, made over to the law students, temp. Edward III. See “Inn.” ”

“ He removed from this inn to the Middle Temple in February 1758, and in November 1764 from the Middle Temple to Gray's Inn. In May 1767 he was called to the bar, and went the northern circuit, of which he soon became one of the leaders. ”

“ His shield, however, was emblazoned on the bay window of the hall not later than 1580, where it was still to be seen in 1671, but from which it has since disappeared; and he is included in a list of Gray's Inn readers compiled in the seventeenth century from authentic materials by Sir William Segar, Garter king of arms, and keeper of Gray's Inn library (Douthwaite, Gray's Inn, p. 46) . ”

“ They represent the various hotels in Tenby, and at a gesture of assent from you one of them takes your bags, your wraps, whatever you are burdened with, and conducts you to a somewhat antiquated vehicle which bears you to your chosen inn through some gray stony streets, under an ivy-green archway of the ancient town-wall; and as the vehicle draws up at the inn-door the beauty of Tenby lies spread suddenly before you—the lovely bay, the cliffs, the sands, the ruined castle on the hill, the restless sea beyond. ”

“ And there is Switzerland always within reach. Happy mortals, who can reach the Alps within forty-eight hours, and with only a narrow, though proverbially nasty, bit of water to cross! But what we hope to gain from this upturning is to see you over here. When Mr. Horner returns (we have heard nothing since they vanished in the West) he will tell you it is no formidable matter even to cross the continent. At least you can come and see us, make us a long visit, and be as quiet here as in a Swiss wayside inn, and sally forth upon an excursion when you like. ”

“ Along the walls directly in front of us, a blaze of purple bloom, stretches the [Pg 375] “largest wisteria in England,” one hundred and eighty feet in length, its stem like a good-sized tree. It has been thus with so many of the old-time inns; each has had some peculiar charm. But surely no architect ever planned the Red Lion Inn; it is a rambling building that seems to have grown up with the years. No straight line curbs its walls; none of its floors maintain the same level; it is a maze of strangely assorted apartments, narrow, winding hallways and odd nooks and corners. ”

“ But the great building is still constructionally the house that fifteenth-century monk left, and how well and truly he built it, let its sound and stable condition, after four centuries and a half of constant use, tell.
Such modern touches as there are about this quaintly named “New” inn are the merest light clothing upon its ancient body, and the sitting-rooms and forty or so bedrooms, cosy and comfortable to us moderns, are but modern in their carpets and fittings, and in the paper that decorates their walls, in between the stout dark timber framing. ”

“ In the good old days men did not go into a public-house to drown their wits in gin, but to buy each other good wholesome ale in Christian fellowship. And as every man went to church—of course, there had to be many alehouses!”
We have since discovered a less picturesque though much more plausible origin of these superfluous inns which will be given in another chapter. Nevertheless, allowing for our good friend’s flamboyant enthusiasm, there is an element of truth in his contention. Wherever there is a church we may be certain of finding an old inn hard by. ”

“ Beyond this, in a wooded hollow at the cross-roads respectively to Chipping Sodbury and Chippenham, you come past the wholly deserted “Plough” inn to the half-deserted, rambling old coaching-and posting-inn of “Cross Hands,” where a mysterious sign, unexplainable by the innkeeper, hangs out, exhibiting two hands crossed, with squabby spatulate fingers, and the inscription “Caius Marius Imperator B.C. 102 Concordia Militum.” What it all means apparently passes the wit of man, or at any rate of local man, to discover. ”

“ Every high road leads sooner or later to a market town, and in that town the tourist may be sure of finding a White Hart Inn. The White Hart is the commonest of signs all through England. Half-timbered and rambling, with the marks of decrepit old age and long service writ large all over it, this inn is in evidence near the market-place, often in a street of the same name, to remind us of its importance in the days gone by. ”

“ It is, indeed, remarkable what picturesqueness lingers in the courtyards of old inns. The front of the house may have been modernised, or in some way smartened up, but the old gables and the casement windows are still generally to be found in the rear, and sometimes the local church-tower comes in, across the roof-tops, in a partly benedictory and wholly sketchable way, as at the village of Dedham, near Colchester, where the [Pg 225] yard of the “Sun” inn and the church-tower combine to make a very fine composition. ”

“ Modern times have passed it by, and the grey Norman church, a huge and ancient tree, and the old “White Horse,” have a very special quiet nook to themselves. One would not like to hazard too close a guess as to the antiquity of the “White [Pg 242] Horse,” whose sign is perhaps the only new thing about it—and that is a picturesque acquisition. The inn is, of course, not of the Norman and early English antiquity of the church, but it was built, let us say, “once upon a time”; which sounds vaguely impressive, and in doing so begins to do justice to the old-world air of the inn. ”

“ As they paused breathless half-way down on the landing, they heard no sound save the loud ticking of the clock in the hall below and the gentle whispering of the breeze without. The moon gave light enough had they needed it, but each of them could have found his way through every nook and corner of the Inn in darkness as well as in broad day-light. They crept down the short flight from the landing, paused and listened at the doors of Mrs. Frost's and Nancy's chambers, and then slipped noiselessly into the bar where the logs still glowed on the hearth. ”

“ She roused herself up with quite a startled look of wonder.
"Why, Edwin," she began, "I never have been in the habit—"
But he hushed her at once.
"I know what is best for you," said he. "A small plate of luncheon, Mrs. Truax; and let it be nice and inviting."
I courtesied, gave her another glance, and went out. Her countenance had not lost its look of wonder. Was he going to be considerate, after all?
The lunch was prepared and taken to her.
Not long after this the inn quieted down, and such guests as were in the house prepared for rest. Midnight came; all was dark in room and hall. ”

“ What a contrast to the Black Lion we found in its next-door neighbor, the Vane Arms, a fine type of the hospitable old-time English inn. Its massive, richly carved furniture would delight the heart of the connoisseur and is the pride of the stately landlady, who sat at the head of the table and treated us as though we were guests in more than the perfunctory hotel parlance. ”

“ They had not at first purposed to make a halt at that place, having planned to stay the night at Tan-y-Bwlch, where the inn commanded a view over a lovely wooded vale. The perils and the inconveniences of the vile road by which they had come faded into insignificance when they drew near, and they began to reckon upon the comforts of a good supper and good beds at Tan-y-Bwlch. They even disputed whether the supper should be chickens or chops, but all such vain arguments and contentions faded away when they drew near and a stony-faced landlord declared he had no room for them. ”

“ We run for miles with no human habitation in sight save an occasional cottage in a small, barren field surrounded by stone walls. We come upon a large, attractive-looking inn unexpectedly—though it ought not to be unexpected to find an inn anywhere in England—the Two Bridges, situated near the head waters of the Dart, here no more than a brawling streamlet. We leave the car by the roadside and enter the homelike hall, where an array of fishing-tackle makes clear the excuse for this pleasant hotel in the moor. The day has been chilly and, strange to say, a fire flickers in the grate. ”

“ Walter Rye, much of the interior helps us to realise what an old inn looked like two or three centuries ago. But the Maid’s Head has a more ancient history, and can boast of a Norman cellar (a relic of the Bishop’s Palace) , while in the drawing-room, a real fifteenth-century fireplace, discovered in the thickness of the wall, has been opened up and correctly fitted with dogs and hood. [Pg 203] The panelled billiard-room, cosy Jacobean bar, and the music gallery in the assembly room (like the “Elevated Den” in the Bull at Rochester) , are all delightful. ”