Dating from 1380 Staple Inn was once the wool staple, where wool was weighed and taxed. Later it became one of the Inns of Chancery which was run like a college for students at the Courts of Chancery.

This building gives some idea of what the road was like 500 years ago and contemporary engravings show these timbered buildings were the norm until after the great fire of London when brick and stone started replacing timber.

Lincoln's Inn is one of London's four Inns of Court, the other three are Gray's Inn, the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple. The four Inns, or 'Honourable Societies of Barristers', all fulfill the same functions, but each has separate traditions.

Lincoln's Inn is the most beautiful and least altered of the Inns with medieval buildings and well-manicured lawns. A haven of tranquility from the noise of London.

Just around the corner from Lincoln's Inn Fields is the Old Curiosity Shop, in Portsmouth Street, dating from the 16th century. This is probably the oldest shop in central London and it has been suggested that this was the inspiration for Dickens' novel but there is no evidence to support this idea. Made using the wood from old ships the building miraculously survived the the Great Fire of 1666 and the bombs of the Second World War.

The main entrance of the British Museum in Great Russel Street. The British Museum has ninety four galleries of archaelogical finds, prints, coins, antiquities and more and entrance is free. There are actually over seven million items.