purity of its rural
atmosphere. Built between 1630 and 1730, that thoroughfare--at present
hemmed in by fetid courts and narrow passages--caught the keen breezes
of Hampstead, and long maintained a character for salubrity as well as
fashion. Of those fine squares and imposing streets which lie between
High Holborn and Hampstead, not a stone had been laid when the ground
covered by the present Freemason's Tavern was one of the most desirable
sites of the metropolis. Indeed, the houses between Holborn and Great
Queen Street were not erected till the mansions on the south side of
the latter thoroughfare--built long before the northern side--had for
years commanded an unbroken view of Holborn Fields. Notwithstanding many
gloomy predictions of the evils that would necessarily follow from
over-building, London steadily increased, and enterprising architects
deprived Lincoln's Inn Fields and Great Queen Street of their rural
qualities. Crossing Holborn, the lawyers settled on a virgin plain
beyond the ugly houses which had sprung up on the north of Great Queen
Street, and on the country side of Holborn. Speedily a new quarter
arose, extending from Gray's Inn on the east to Southampton Row on the
West, and lying between Holborn and the line of Ormond Street, Red Lion
Street, Bedford Row, Great Ormond Street, Little Ormond Street, Great
James Street, and Little James Street were amongst its best
thoroughfares; in its centre was Red Lion Square, and in its
northwestern corner lay Queen's Square. Steadily enlarging its
boundaries, it comprised at later dates Guildford Street, John's Street,
Doughty Street, Mecklenburgh Square, Brunswick Square, Bloomsbury
Square, Russell Square, Bedford Square--indeed, all the region lying
between Gray's Inn Lane (on the east), Tottenham Court Road (on the
west), Holborn (on the south), and a line running along the north of the
Foundling Hospital and 'the squares.' Of course this large residential
district was more than the lawyers required for themselves. It became
and long remained a favorite quarter with merchants, physicians,[2] and
surgeons; and until a recent date it comprised the mansions of many
leading members of the aristocracy. But from its first commencement it
was so intimately associated with the legal profession that it was often
called the 'law quarter;' and the writer of this page has often heard
elderly ladies and gentlemen speak of it as the 'old law quarter.'

Although lawyers