3-011-727 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Demolition of Lyon's Inn, Strand, [London], 1862. 'A piece of old London - a long-neglected, out-of-the-way nook and corner - has disappeared, after having been threatened with destruction for nearly half a century. This old, degenerate place had, however, been a spot of note - one of the nurseries of our great lawyers - an Inn of Chancery, attached to the parent inn, the Inner Temple...On the north side of the street the oldest portion of Lyon's Inn remained, and here was the original entrance, blocked up many years since. It had a pair of boldly-sculptured lions' heads: opposite is...a corner-post carved with a lion's head and paws, serving as a corbel to support a very old house; this court being the entrance to Lyon's Inn from the Strand...after the blocking up of the original entrance, that in Newcastle-street remained the only gate..."Lyon's Inn was a guest inn or hostelry, held at the sign of the Lyon, and purchased by gentlemen, professors, and students in the law in the raigne of King Henry the Eighth, and converted to an Inn of Chancery."...The View...shows the north, south, and west sides of the Inn, with the east end of the Hall, in course of removal, to form the site of projected hotel buildings upon an extensive scale'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.