Barnard's Inn, the Inner Courtyard, 1878-1879

From: Henry Dixon & Son

RA Collection: Art

"To those who know the quiet retirement and old-world air of Barnard's Inn, it will seem somewhat in accordance with the fitness of things that the last of the alchemists should have pursued here his search for the elixir. This was Peter Woulfe, a Fellow of the Royal Society, who died in 1805. " Sir Humphrey Davy tells us," says Mr Timbs in his Century of Anecdotes, "that he used to hang up written prayers and inscriptions of recommendations of his processes to Providence. His chambers were so filled with furnaces and apparatus, that it was difficult to reach the fireside." He breakfasted at four in the morning; friends were admitted only upon giving a secret signal.

We must not forget that here Pip, of Great Expectations at one time had his quarters in what Dickens rather harshly calls "the dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for tom-cats.""

The above description, by Alfred Marks was taken from the letterpress which accompanies the photographs.