Royal Courts of Justice: The Victorian Gothic Cathedral of English Law
Why is it significant?
Stand on the Strand and look up at the colossal Victorian Gothic battlements, soaring arches, and clock tower of the Royal Courts of Justice.
Key Facts
| Place | Royal Courts of Justice: The Victorian Gothic Cathedral of English Law |
|---|---|
| Address | Strand, London WC2A 2LL, United Kingdom |
| Geo Coordinates | 51.51380, -0.11320 |
| Part of Walk | Literary Bloomsbury & The British Museum: Rosetta Stone to Virginia Woolf |
| Generated | Generated |
Stand on the Strand and look up at the colossal Victorian Gothic battlements, soaring arches, and clock tower of the Royal Courts of Justice. Walk through the carved stone portal into the Great Hall: vaulted ceilings of polished Portland stone rise eighty feet overhead, resembling the nave of a medieval cathedral, while judges and barristers in black robes and horsehair wigs sweep purposefully across the mosaic floor.
Opened by Queen Victoria in December eighteen eighty-two, this immense legal fortress contains over thirty-five million bricks and three and a half miles of corridors, uniting the ancient courts of Common Law and Chancery under one triumphant Victorian roof.
The architect, George Edmund Street, died of exhaustion and stroke at the age of fifty-seven, just months before the building was inaugurated, worn down by the monumental strain of drawing thousands of detailed blueprints by hand.
Listen to the chime of the courtyard clock and the fluttering pigeons overhead. You have traversed the intellectual, literary, and legal heart of London.