The Great Hall

The Great Hall and Library complex was built between 1843 and 1845.  It was opened by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert on 30 October in 1845.  The Inn’s ‘Black Books’ record how “‘Queen’s Counsel wore their silk gowns and the long full-bottomed wig; Lord Cottenham, Lord Campbell, and the Speaker, wore their black velvet Court dresses, the three Vice-Chancellors their full-dress Judges’ wigs, and Lord Bexley his blue and gold official dress as a former Minister of the Crown.’ The Queen is recorded as having worn ‘a blue drawn silk bonnet, with a blue feather, a dress of Limerick lace, and a scarlet shawl with a broad gold edging’ while Prince Albert was in Field Marshal uniform.”

The Architect was Philip Hardwick (1792-1870) probably best known today for designing the (now demolished) Euston arch. He was happy to design in very different architectural styles but for the Great Hall he favoured a Tudor idiom, strongly reminiscent of Hampton Court. The whole project cost over £55,000, about £4.6 million today.

The whole complex (known to Inn staff as the Treasury Building) contains the library, a central Upper Vestibule, two meeting spaces, the Benchers Room and the Council Room, as well as the magnificent Great Hall.  Below these meeting and study spaces are all the offices of the Inn, and the kitchens.