Temple (the) is situated between Fleet Street and the Thames, part of which was built in 1184. It was the quarters of the Knights Templars, a religious order founded in the 12th century to protect the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
The order was dissolved in 1313, and in 1346 it was leased to the students of common law, and ever since it has been one of the Centres of legal learning and study in England: the law of England "broadening slowly down from precedent to precedent. " It is constituted the Inner and Middle Temple, the Inner being within the City bounds, and the latter being between that and the Outer Temple.
The Temple Gardens, running down to the Thames Embankment, are sometimes open to the public, and every early summer time has been held here the Flower Show of the Royal Horticultural Society, the finest show of the kind in London.
It is said that it was in these gardens were plucked the red and white roses which became the badges of the houses of York and Lancaster in the protracted civil war that followed. The Middle Temple Hall was built in 1572, and is used as a dining room, with a fine oak ceiling, and has some valuable portraits, one of Charles I.
The Inner Temple Hall is also a fine building. Libraries are attached to each division of the Temple. The Temple Church in the Inner Temple jointly belongs to each of them.