Today, we went to the Inner Temple on Fleet Street. (for the curious and the inquisitive, there is in fact an Outer Temple and a Middle Temple)

We walked through a wide archway flanked by a black wooden gate, which linked to a narrow cobblestone path still wet from the afternoon's weak drizzle. The path suddenly widened, opened, and peeled back, a doorway to a separate world.

The noise and bustle, the dark and windy London of traffic lights and black cabs fell away and we were left with an almost deafening silence as we stood in a Victorian square, surrounded by Victorian buildings which stood stolidly above our heads. The lamps of old London swung above windows and wooden signs, and I half expected a lady in voluminous gown and ruffles to appear.

To our left sat a creature of simple lines and modest arches, crafted by the Knights Templar in the twelfth century, going down a short flight of steps gave us an enchanting little garden, its doorway latticed with an almost dainty ivy plant. Walking through the corridors to the Great Hall, we were surrounded by portraits of ancient judges and lords, who surely would never have expected a trio of university students to be entering their domain.

The Hall itself had high vaulted ceilings and row upon row upon row of coats of arms of all those who had passed through the Inner Temple's doors. Even the ceiling had minute painted details that the naked eye cannot catch, geometric patterns running along the sides of the walls, coated in vivid blues and yellows.

As the sun set and night settled her mantle over the Inner Temple, we strode back out into the 21st century, still feeling for all the world that though we were in the heart of bustling, modern London, that we had spent a few treasured moments in the heart of the countryside, in the Victorian era.

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