The Temple area, together with nearby Holborn, is the legal heart of London. It’s also the location of two of the most gorgeous gardens in Central London, Inner Temple Gardens and Middle Temple Gardens. Let’s go explore!
At a glance...
Visiting the gardens in Inner and Middle Temple: practical information
Opening Hours: 12:30 to 15:00, Monday to Friday, except Bank Holidays.
Website: https://www.innertemple.org.uk/estate-garden/the-inner-temple-garden/
How to get there: the nearest stations are Temple (Circle Line, District Line) and Blackfriars (Circle Line, District Line, British Rail).
The area known as Temple

Temple grew around the Temple Church, which was built in the 12th Century by the Knight Templars. Most people know about the Knight Templars, right? They were one of the wealthiest and most powerful catholic military orders active during the Crusades. The Temple Church and its compound was their English headquarters.
The order of the Knight Templars was abolished at the turn of the 14th Century (it’s a long story, and one for some later post…). The church and its grounds were seized by the Crown and later given to the Knights Hospitallers, another powerful catholic military order of the time. (They are still going today, albeit in a rather different fashion, and you can visit the museum that tells their story.)
The early days of Inner Temple and Middle Temple
The Knights Hospitallers in turn leased the church to two colleges of lawyers, and those evolved over time into the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple and the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, more commonly known simply as Inner Temple and Middle Temple. What those two rather esoteric names refer to are two of the four professional associations for barristers in England and Wales. (Collectively, these are known as the Inns of Court. The other two Inns of Court are Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn, which are located further to the north, in Holborn.)

The gardens of Inner Temple and Middle Temple
Inner Temple gardens and Middle Temple gardens are the two main gardens in Temple, but there are other, smaller ones, hidden in courtyards, discovered at random as you wander round the grounds. And wander you very likely will, because the grounds of Inner and Middle Temple are a bit of a (charming) labyrinth, and getting lost is part of the whole experience.

It’s a very peaceful area, mostly carless and self-contained, and very, very pretty. The cobbled streets, fountains, and narrow passageways make for a unique atmosphere. Many of the buildings are listed and the Temple area as a whole is a designated Conservation area. The oldest buildings date back to the 16th Century, the newest are from the 1950s, and they blend together in a pleasing fashion.
Urban oasis is such an overused term, but in this case, it’s totally accurate. Oh, yeah, and did somebody say “hidden gem” too…?
A very short history of Inner Temple and Middle Temple gardens
The earliest gardens would have been much smaller, because the Thames was much wider back then. Over the centuries, more and land was reclaimed, and the area covered by the gardens extended. The largest extension by far was during the embankment of the Thames in the 19th Century, a massive engineering project masterminded by Joseph Bazalgette that also created Victoria Embankment Gardens.

The very early gardens would probably have been used to grow vegetables and medicinal herbs. Over time, the gardens had many incarnations: they have been formal gardens and there was a tree lined avenue at one point.

Middle Temple gardens have been immortalized in literature by William Shakespeare (in “Henry VI”) as the starting location of the War of the Roses, the 15th Century conflict that saw two rival branches of nobles squabbling for power over the throne.

By the 19th century, crocuses, tulips, and chrysanthemums were more favoured than roses. Chrysanthemums, in particular, were extremely popular, with 200 varieties on display in an annual chrysanthemum show. This was a forerunner for the Royal Horticultural Show’s Great Spring Show, probably better known today as the Chelsea Flower Show. The RHS Spring Show was held in Temple Gardens until its move to Chelsea in 1913.

At the turn of the century, the central lawn also featured tennis courts. During the First World War, the gardens were used as training grounds, and allotments replaced the tennis courts during the Second World War, in an echo of the gardens’ original use.
Today, this delightful corner of London is open to the public during for a short while during the working week and makes for a unique destination.
Want to see more unique gardens? Why not visit Bonnington Square Pleasure Garden in Vauxhall or Ruskin Park in Camberwell?

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