Venue Gallery: Middle Temple Hall

Description:

Middle Temple Hall is one of the finest examples of an Elizabethan Hall in the country. 101 feet long and 41 feet wide, it is spanned by a magnificent double hammer beam roof carved from the oak of Windsor Forest. Begun in 1562 and finished in 1573, it has remained virtually unaltered to the present day. From the first this Hall was the scene of both serious legal education, and of high spirited entertainments, masques, revels and gaming. Disorders in Hall were not uncommon and rules were enacted in Elizabethan times forbidding the wearing of cloaks, swords and rapiers in the Hall. The first performance of Shakespeare’s "Twelfth Night" is reputed to have taken place in Hall in 1602 and there is a plaque in the Entrance Hall marking this event. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was a regular visitor to the Inn since her Call to the Bench here in 1944; she visited the Hall to see the progress of the post-war reconstruction and opened the restored Hall in 1949. She was a regular visitor to the Inn until three months before her death. The Hall is not an historic relic. It is the centre of the life of the Inn today and is available for hire throughout the year.