Clifford's Inn is the name of both a former Inn of Chancery in London and a present mansion block on the same site. It is located between Fetter Lane and Clifford's Inn Passage in the City of London. The Inn was founded in 1344 and refounded 15 June 1668. It was dissolved in 1903, and most of its original structure was demolished in 1934, save for a gateway which survives. It was both the first Inn of Chancery to be founded and the last to be demolished. The mansion block was built in the late 1930s incorporating preserving the name.
Clifford's Inn in 1885
1873 illustration
Clifford's Inn Passage, London EC4
Clifford’s Inn 1937 Sale
The Inns of Chancery or Hospida Cancellarie were a group of buildings and legal institutions in London initially attached to the Inns of Court and used as offices for the clerks of chancery, from which they drew their name. Existing from at least 1344, the Inns gradually changed their purpose, and became both the offices and accommodation for solicitors and a place of initial training for barristers.
Staple Inn, the only Inn of Chancery building to survive largely intact
Early-18th-century engraving of Furnival's Inn by Sutton Nicholls
Staple Inn in 1886
Garden House, Clements Inn, 1883 by Philip Norman