Staple Inn is London’s only surviving sixteenth-century domestic building, situated on the south side of High Holborn.
Its timber-framed façade overhangs the roadway.
The building was once the wool staple, where wool was weighed and taxed. It was an Inn of Chancery built between 1545 to 1549. It survived the Great Fire of London and was restored in 1886 and reconstructed in 1937. It was extensively damaged by a Nazi German Luftwaffe aerial bomb in 1944 but was subsequently restored once more. It has a distinctive cruck roof and an internal courtyard.
It was originally attached to Gray’s Inn, which is one of the four Inns of Court. The Inns of Chancery fell into decay in the 19th century. All of them were dissolved, and most were demolished. Staple Inn is the only one which survives largely intact.
It was later rebuilt by the Prudential Insurance Company, and is now used by the Institute of Actuaries and various other companies.
The historic interiors include a great hall, used by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries. The ground floor street frontage is let to shops and restaurants, required to use plainer signage than they do on less sensitive buildings.
Old Holborn tobacco was originally produced in an alleyway on the north side of Holborn. Staple Inn formerly featured on tins and pouches of this product.
Staple Inn was an extra-parochial area until 1858 and then a civil parish. It became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Holborn in 1900 and was abolished in 1930.
On 1 April 1994 boundary changes meant that the Inn was transferred from the London Borough of Camden to the City of London (and the City ward of Farringdon Without).
It was designated a grade I listed building in 1974.
The Underground Map project is creating street histories for the areas of London and surrounding counties lying within the M25.
The aim of the project is to find the location every street in London, whether past or present, and tell its story. This project aims to be a service to historians, genealogists and those with an interest in urban design.
The website features a series of maps from the 1750s until the 1950s. You can see how London grows over the decades. |
Staple Inn is London’s only surviving sixteenth-century domestic building, situated on the south side of High Holborn.
