The heart of legal London transported back to the 1800s
Middle Temple has bagged itself yet another television appearance, this time providing the backdrop to Tom Hardy’s dark BBC drama ‘Taboo’.
The new eight-part series — set in London in 1814 — documents the life of James Delaney (played by Hardy), who has returned to England having spent the past 12 years in Africa under mysterious circumstances.
Airing its second episode on Friday, Delaney — keen to purchase a sailing ship — visits an auction house. Readers familiar with legal London would have spotted that the building he enters is actually one of the four Inns of Court, Middle Temple.
In another scene, Delaney rides horseback up the iconic cobbled road of Middle Temple Lane.
Towards the end of Friday’s episode, Delaney — accompanied by his father’s lawyer, Robert Thoyt — can be seen walking along King’s Bench Walk, with a list of barristers’ names clearly visible outside a chambers’ entrance.
This isn’t the first time Middle Temple has graced our TV screens. Back in 2013, the historic building featured in a Marks & Spencer’s Christmas ad starring Helena Bonham Carter.
Fast-forward a year and it was hitting the big time again, courtesy of period drama Downton Abbey. Cutting across Middle Temple Lane, the Dowager Countess of Grantham and Isobel Crawley entered Temple Church, which — for the purposes of the programme — had been transformed into a soup kitchen for the criminal barristers poor.
Spotted a celebrity filming around Temple? Be sure to let us know.
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