3-101-166 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Gray's Inn - Hall, c1885. One of the London Inns of Court. 'Gray's Inn Hall was built in 1560. As will be seen, it resembles in character and arrangement the Halls of Charterhouse, and of the Middle Temple; all three are indeed of nearly the same date. There is a tradition that the tables partly shown in the photograph were presented by Queen Elizabeth, whose "glorious, pious, and immortal memory" is solemnly drunk here on grand days.' Description by Alfred Marks. The hall contains a large carved screen at one end covering the entrance to the Vestibule. Legend says that the screen was given to the Inn by Elizabeth I while she was the Inn's patron, and is carved out of the wood of a Spanish galleon captured from the Spanish Armada.