Outdoors & Nature

Gray's Inn Walks

Nearly six acres of private garden behind Holborn, laid out when Francis Bacon ran the Inn and open two and a half hours a day.

GardensFree

The Walks are one of the largest privately owned gardens in London - 5.8 acres - and the layout you walk through is essentially the one settled in the early seventeenth century, when Francis Bacon was Treasurer of Gray's Inn. You come in at Field Court through a wrought-iron gate of 1723 with griffins on its pillars and the initials of William Gylby, who was Treasurer then.

From the gate the central gravel path runs under an avenue of American red oaks. Beyond them are old London planes ringed with blue hyacinths in spring, catalpas carrying white candle-shaped flowers at midsummer, and a small orchard planted in 2009 on the upper west lawn. The bank by the north steps is left as long grass - daffodils in spring, ox-eye daisies in summer - and a hornbeam hedge screens the whole thing from Theobalds Road, though not from the top deck of a bus. Climbing roses, the deep red Guinee and the pink-edged Handel, go up the railings near the Jockeys Fields entrance in June. Geoffrey Wickham's Bronze Angel, made in the early 1970s, has stood on the lawn south of the Atkin Building since 2012.

Great spotted woodpeckers, jays and sparrowhawks have all been seen here. Open to the public on weekdays only, from noon until half past two; no dogs except guide dogs.

Where

Gray's Inn, WC1R 5ET

Nearest station

Chancery Lane · 4 min walk

Hours

Hours from the page that lists them, checked 14 September 2026.

NearbyOutdoors & Nature

• Lincoln's Inn Gardens5 min walk
• Lincoln's Inn Fields6 min walk
• The Inns of Court garden walk7 min walk

NearbyOther Categories

• Sun Yat-senThe World in London2 min walk
• KonditorBakeries2 min walk
• Gray's InnPower & Politics2 min walk

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