3-101-165 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Gray's Inn - Field Court, c1885. One of the London Inns of Court. 'Gray's Inn takes its name from Edmund, Lord Gray of Wilton, by whom, in 1505, the Manor of Portpoole, otherwise called Gray's Inn, four messuages, four gardens, the site of a windmill, eight acres of land, ten shillings of free rent, and the advowson of the Chantry of Portpoole were sold to Hugh Denny. From him the manor passed to the Prior and Convent of East Sheen. They leased it to certain students of the law, who became tenants of the Crown when the property was seized on the suppression of religious houses. The great Lord Bacon had chambers here, from which he dates the dedication of his "Essays." The garden, which is partly shown in the view of Field Court, was first planted in 1600, and as Bacon was then Treasurer of the Society it is not too much to assume that the author of the essay "Of Gardens" had a great deal to do with its planning. These gardens, which continued to have an uninterrupted view of Hampstead and Highgate were long a fashionable promenade.' Description by Alfred Marks.