Staple Inn, London

Perched above Chancery Lane tube station, on the bustling southern side of High Holborn, is a Tudor-style wooden structure that looks like it time-traveled straight out of the 1500s-and got slightly jostled on the way. Say hello to Staple Inn: a timber-framed, gable-topped survivor with a façade so charmingly crooked it could star in its own period drama. Built in the 16th century, it somehow dodged the flames of the Great Fire of London-though the 1940s Blitz gave it a rougher time, prompting some serious restoration work.

Now, if you dare to wander through the narrow passage beneath the building, you’ll stumble into a peaceful courtyard that’s as Dickensian as it gets. Charles Dickens described this very spot in his final, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, calling it “a little nook composed of two irregular quadrangles.” It’s here that the character Mr. Grewgious lived, and if that name doesn’t scream “Victorian eccentric,” what does? Dickens captured the vibe perfectly, writing that walking in from the noisy street feels like “placing cotton in your ears and velvet soles on your boots.” Still accurate. Still poetic. Still very Dickens.

And here’s the kicker: Dickens knew this courtyard firsthand. In the 1820s, he worked at a solicitor’s office just across the street in Gray’s Inn-one of the four Inns of Court. No, not a pub, but a lawyer-training headquarters where wigs, quills, and serious legal drama reigned supreme. Later, as a journalist, he would’ve seen those seven gables every day, possibly while plotting his next twist-filled chapter.

So next time you pass Staple Inn, take a detour through the archway. You might just hear the ghost of Dickens muttering something brilliant-or at least grumbling about deadlines...