Mon-Fri 10am-4pm; www.graysinn.org.uk

The last of the four Inns of Court, Gray's Inn , lies hidden to the north of High Holborn, at the top of Chancery Lane; the entrance is through an anonymous cream-coloured building next door to the venerable Cittie of Yorke pub. Established in the fourteenth century, most of what you see today was rebuilt after the Blitz, with the exception of the hall (by appointment only; tel 020/7458 7800), with its fabulous Tudor screen and stained glass, where the premiere of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors is thought to have taken place in 1594.

	Enter a city
	or select a destination
	Select dates
	Arrival: Departure:
	Guests and rooms
	Guests: Rooms:

 

Heading east along High Holborn, it's worth pausing to admire Staple Inn on the right, not one of the Inns of Court, but one of the now defunct Inns of Chancery, which used to provide a sort of foundation course for those aspiring to the Bar. Its overhanging half-timbered facade and gables date from the sixteenth century and are the most extensive in the whole of London; they survived the Great Fire, which stopped just short of Holborn Circus, but had to be extensively rebuilt after the Blitz.