On Innocents’ Day, 28 December 1594, during the Inn’s Christmas revels, The Comedy of Errors was played in the Hall of Gray’s Inn. It is the first recorded performance of Shakespeare’s play, and the room it was staged in is now where couples marry. Gray’s Inn is one of the four Inns of Court that train barristers and call them to the Bar, set around South Square and Gray’s Inn Square in Holborn, and three of its spaces hold a wedding licence: the Hall, the Large Pension Room on the same floor, and The Walks, the five acre garden that Francis Bacon planted.
A society of lawyers that kept Christmas
Lawyers have been on this site since before 1388. The land was part of the Manor of Purpoole, which belonged to the de Grey family, and their house was probably leased to a society of lawyers who lodged apprentices in chambers and used the manor’s hall to dine and to argue moots, the mock trials of a barrister’s training. The Inn still carries the family’s name.
Under Elizabeth I, its patron, the Inn reached the height of its standing. William Cecil and Nicholas Bacon were members and recruited promising young men, and in 1574 Gray’s Inn was the largest of the four Inns, with 120 barristers. At Christmas the students ruled the Inn under a Lord of Misrule they called the Prince of Purpoole, and in 1594 the evening of Shakespeare’s comedy, played by his company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, descended into such disorder that it was remembered as the Night of Errors. A mock trial was held afterwards to arraign the culprit. The Gesta Grayorum, the account of those revels, describes the players as “a company of base and common fellows”.
The Hall that came back from the Blitz
The Hall was rebuilt between 1556 and 1558 and is the only building at the Inn that still holds fabric from before the late seventeenth century; it is listed at Grade I. It is about seventy feet long, with a hammerbeam roof and a raised dais at the east end where the Benchers sat. In the screens passage at the west end, a sixteenth century doorway on the north side is carved with the arms of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk and brother in law of Henry VIII.
On 11 May 1941 an incendiary attack left the Hall in ruins and destroyed the roof. The heraldic glass and the Treasurers’ coats of arms had been taken away for safekeeping, and the great oak screen, already dismantled, was rescued as the building burned. Detailed drawings of the roof, made as a precaution during the First World War, allowed Sir Edward Maufe to rebuild it, and the Duke of Gloucester formally reopened the Hall in 1951.
The screen is the room’s set piece: five bays divided by Ionic columns wrapped in carved strapwork, carrying a gallery. Tradition at the Inn holds that it was made from the timbers of the Nuestra Señora del Rosario, flagship of the Andalusian squadron of the Spanish Armada, captured in 1588 and broken up at Chatham, and that it may have been a gift from Elizabeth I or from Lord Howard, the Lord High Admiral and a member of the Inn. Diagonal marks said to be left by ropes can still be seen on the third pillar from the left. The Benchers’ table is also said to be her gift, and until the late nineteenth century the only public toast in the Inn was to her memory.
The panelling below the windows carries the arms of successive Treasurers, and the glass is heraldic, the oldest of it fifteenth century. The south oriel window holds the arms of Queen Elizabeth II and of the Prince of Wales. On 29 July 1918 Franklin Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the United States Navy, first met Winston Churchill at a dinner at the high table here; Roosevelt came away thoroughly unimpressed, and Churchill later failed to remember the meeting at all.
How a wedding uses the Domus Building
The Hall sits on the first floor of the Domus Building, and a large wedding takes the whole building. The Hall holds the ceremony, seating 170, and is then transformed for dining and dancing, while the Large Pension Room is used for drinks, speeches and cutting the cake. For dinner the Hall seats 176 at long tables or 150 at round tables, and 100 at rounds once a dance floor is laid. The Small Pension Room, on the ground floor, oak panelled with a mahogany table and rose motifs on its ceiling, and the Benchers’ Library, with tall windows over Gray’s Inn Square, are kept for the bridal party and the suppliers.
A smaller wedding of up to 60 can take the first floor alone. Here the Large Pension Room, a bright room with chandeliers and a marble fireplace, holds the ceremony for up to 80 or the wedding breakfast for 50 at long tables and 56 at rounds. Drinks are served on The Landing, and the Benchers’ Library is kept as a private room for the couple’s belongings.
Bacon’s Walks
In 1597 Francis Bacon was to be paid £7 for the planting of trees in the walks, and the brick wall that enclosed them was finished the following year. Under his direction the ground was levelled and planted with elms, birch, cherry and hedges of privet, and in 1608, the year he became Treasurer, work began on a Mount with a pavilion at the centre of the upper walk, with mazes to either side. In 1621 James Howell called the Walks “the pleasantest place about London”.
Between 1755 and 1770 the layout was simplified to the designs of a Mr Brown, probably Lancelot Capability Brown, and the Mount was taken away. Around 1800 the limes planted in the 1690s gave way to London planes, and planes still shade the lawns today, alongside two catalpas from the eighteenth century. The Walks are on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens at Grade II*, and a statue of Bacon by Frederick Pomeroy has stood in South Square since 1912.
A summer marquee among the planes
The Walks are licensed for outdoor ceremonies in the warmer months, for up to 250 guests. Outside the summer they serve the weddings held indoors, for drinks on the lawn and photographs under the trees. The Inn’s own short film, The Walks of Gray’s Inn, shows the gardens.
In June and July a contemporary marquee stands in The Walks, and the reception can be held there. It seats 250 for dinner and takes 600 standing, and comes with air cooling, a dance floor, its own restrooms and a built in feature bar, with an extended terrace and a second bar outside. The Inn works with a group of suppliers to dress it with lighting, flowers and décor, and the marquee can also be taken on a dry hire basis by couples who would rather style it themselves.
Searcys at the table
The Inn’s catering partner since January 2025 is Searcys, founded in 1847 by John Searcy, who had been confectioner to the Duke of Northumberland. Menus are seasonal, with British suppliers named: smoked salmon from London Smoke and Cure, an own label English sparkling wine from Greyfriars Vineyard and coffee from Notes, roasted in east London. Menus can be adapted for a range of dietary requirements, and Gray’s Inn is a nut free venue, so nothing containing nuts can be brought on site.
The wedding package starts at £188 a guest including VAT, for a minimum of 120 guests. It covers the Hall, the two Pension Rooms and the Benchers’ Library from noon to midnight, a menu tasting for the couple, a one hour prosecco reception, three courses with coffee and petits fours, half a bottle of house wine for each guest and prosecco for the toast. Bespoke packages are also offered, and members of the Inn are entitled to a discount on room hire.
Arriving in Holborn
Chancery Lane Underground station is two minutes’ walk away, Holborn eight and Farringdon nine, and King’s Cross is a taxi or bus ride. There are no bedrooms at Gray’s Inn, so guests stay in hotels nearby. For more historic London settings, read about Trinity House on Tower Hill and St. Pancras London, browse wedding venues in Holborn and across London, or see the legal requirements for marrying in London.
The choice that shapes a wedding here is the number at dinner. Up to 176, the whole day fits inside the Domus Building, with the Hall at its centre; beyond that the marquee is the only space that seats more, and it stands in June and July alone. Fix the guest list before the date, then read the Gray’s Inn profile and check your date.
