Lloyd Evans wanders round Inner Temple and discovers another world in the tangle of squares
Where’s the best place to eat lunch in London? First let’s strike restaurants off the list. At a restaurant your plate of recently throttled livestock will have been executed by a pimply sadist, cooked by a cursing psychopath and delivered to your table by a grudging PhD drop-out angling for a tip. So forget restaurants. Instead, choose outdoor refreshment and a bill of fare invented by the Romans and suitable for any time of day. A hunk of bread, a wedge of cheese and a flagon of Valpolicella. And for a picnicking spot you couldn’t do better than the lush shelving lawn of Inner Temple just off the Strand.
A young Scots barrister in the 18th century described its attractions with an outsider’s eye. ‘You quit all the hurry and bustle of the City in Fleet Street, and all at once you find yourself in a pleasant academical retreat.
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