Middle Temple

The West End

LoginSave

From the Strand, look for a studded black door labelled ‘Middle Temple Lane’, opposite Bell Yard and the Royal Courts building, and you’ll find yourself in the sprawling complex surrounding the Temple Church and the Elizabethan Middle Temple Hall. The church was originally planned and built by the secretive Knights Templar in the mid-12th century; the hall was pieced together bit by bit after being blown to smithereens during WWII. There are wonderful gardens and courtyards at every turn.

On weekends enter from Tudor St to the east. Tours of the Middle Temple are available (£8 to £12), but you will need to book ahead.

Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

  • The Long Walk, the pathway leading to Windsor Castle is 2 1/2 miles long.

    Windsor Castle

    21.37 MILES

    The world’s largest and oldest continuously occupied fortress, Windsor Castle is a majestic vision of battlements and towers. Used for state occasions, it…

  • Westminster Abbey.

    Westminster Abbey

    1.11 MILES

    A splendid mixture of architectural styles, Westminster Abbey is considered the finest example of Early English Gothic. It's not merely a beautiful place…

  • Tate Modern museum on the southern bank of the River Thames.

    Tate Modern

    0.61 MILES

    One of London's most amazing attractions, Tate Modern is an outstanding modern- and contemporary-art gallery housed in the creatively revamped Bankside…

  • London Natural History Museum

    Natural History Museum

    3.02 MILES

    With its thunderous, animatronic dinosaur, riveting displays about planet earth, outstanding Darwin Centre and architecture straight from a Gothic fairy…

  • St. pauls cathedral with red double decker bus in London, United Kingdom

    St Paul's Cathedral

    0.57 MILES

    Sir Christopher Wren’s 300-year-old architectural masterpiece is a London icon. Towering over diminutive Ludgate Hill in a superb position that's been a…

  • The Tower of London

    Tower of London

    1.56 MILES

    Few parts of the UK are as steeped in history or as impregnated with legend and superstition as the titanic stonework of the Tower of London. Not only is…

  • Dusk view of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on the banks of the River Thames in London

    Shakespeare's Globe

    0.69 MILES

    Seeing a play at Shakespeare's Globe – ideally standing under the open-air "wooden O" – is experiencing the playwright's work at its best and most…

  • Great Court, British Museum, Bloomsbury, London, England, United Kingdom, Europe

    British Museum

    0.8 MILES

    With almost six million visitors trooping through its doors annually, the British Museum in Bloomsbury, one of the oldest and finest museums in the world,…

View more attractions

Nearby The West End attractions

1. Two Temple Place

0.06 MILES

This neo-Gothic house built in the late 1890s for William Waldorf Astor, of hotel fame and once the richest man in America, showcases art from UK museum…

2. Inner Temple

0.07 MILES

Duck under the archway at Old Mitre Court (47 Fleet St) and you’ll find yourself in the Inner Temple, a sprawling complex of some of the finest buildings…

3. Temple Church

0.08 MILES

The magnificent Temple Church was built by the secretive Knights Templar, an order of crusading monks founded in the 12th century to protect pilgrims…

4. St Clement Danes

0.11 MILES

Christopher Wren designed the original church here in 1682, but only the walls and a steeple added by James Gibbs in 1719 survived bombing in 1941; the…

5. Royal Courts of Justice

0.12 MILES

Where the Strand joins Fleet St, you’ll see the entrance to this gargantuan melange of Gothic spires, pinnacles and burnished Portland stone, built in…

6. Dr Johnson’s House

0.23 MILES

This 16th-century Georgian pile is one of the few surviving in the City, and it was the home of Samuel Johnson, author of the first serious English…

7. Bush House

0.25 MILES

Home of the BBC World Service for more than 70 years, this iconic building at the southern end of Kingsway was built between 1923 and 1935. It has been…

8. St Bride’s

0.28 MILES

Printing presses on Fleet St fell silent in the 1980s, but St Bride's is still referred to as the 'journalists' church'; a moving memorial in the north…