Staple Inn; Customs House, Wool Court, and Inn of Chancery. Its Media Val Surroundings and Associations (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXIII THE PASSING OF THE SOCIETY OF STAPLE INN The final chapter in the history, not indeed of the Inn itself, but of the Company or Society is soon told. Following the date of the feoffment mentioned in the last chapter, events of very even tenor, for nearly two generations, smoothly kept an equal pace with the slow passing of time. Eleven successive principals occupied the post of honour and retired; nothing occurred to disturb the peaceful, if busy, seclusion which had again become the Inn's distinctive mark. The City's other ancient buildings, one by one, were being swept away, till nearly all that the great Fire had left undemotished was submerged; and still the ebb and flow of tumultuous traffic and continuous change surged harmlessly past this little haven of apparent calm. Old sites were built upon and rebuilt upon, again and again; beneath the invading flood of 'improvements' this neighbourhood witnessed no less than three Furnival's Inns succumb ere the Prudential reared its massive pinnacled tower; yet still, through some feeling of reverence on the part of the public, for an obscure, mysterious past, dimly understood, but, it is to be hoped by this book made clearer, or perhaps through some real though indefinable interest in the domestic architecture of other days, this quaint relic of a bygone age was preserved with all its unique characteristics unimpaired; except in one part only; there it did at last shed one ligament; and under the following circumstances part of the old south side of the garden court disappeared. In 1842 the Taxing Masters in Chancery, anxious to secure new premises, applied to the Society of Staple Inn for a suite of offices within their retired precincts and, finally, entered into an agreement with the Princip...