GRAY'S INN		THE WALKS Gray's Inn gardens are known as the Walks. They run from Field Court to the northern boundary of the Inn along Theobald's Road. It was Bacon, one of whose best-loved Essays is 'Of Gardens', who laid them out, but, alas, his design was mutilated when Raymond Buildings were erected on the site of his mount' and Verulam Buildings on his flower garden. Nevertheless what remains is a charming feature of the Inn, dear to its heart. The Bencher in charge of horticultural affairs in the Inn is known as Master of the Walks. An early account of Bacon's handiwork is as follows: I next come to the Walks, which are very large and beautiful. Of these the first mention that I find is in 40 Eliz. Mr Bacon having upon his account made in 4 Jac. allowed the sum of £7 14s. to be laid out for planting elm trees in them, of which elms some died as it seems; for at a Pension held here 14 Nov.41 Eliz. there was an order made for a present supply of more young elms in the places of such as were decayed; and that a new rail and quickset hedges should be set upon the upper long walk at the discretion of the same Mr Bacon and Mr Wilbraham: which being done, amounted to the charge of £10 6s. 8d. as by the said Mr Bacon's account, allowed 28 April 42 Eliz., appeareth. The Walks are entered from Field Court through imposing wrought-iron gates bearing the date 1723. Golden letters show this to have been the year when the Treasurer (T) was one William (W) Gilbey (W). The great key is inscribed: 'Members are entitled; the public in summer lunch-hours; and dogs never'. The gate posts are surmounted by the Inn's fearsome griffins, though here they are seated and hold between their paws shields bearing the winged horse of Inner Temple (compare the archway leading from Gray's Inn Square to Gray's Inn Road). The main feature is a broad, gravelled path between an avenue of mature plane trees behind which are ornamental trees and shrubs. It is tempting to think that the catalpas at the end, now bowed with age and supported by crutches, grew from slips brought back from America by Sir Walter Raleigh and planted by Bacon. The Walks have always been a popular promenade and a lovely place for social gatherings in the summer. It is an old custom for the Treasurer of the Inn to hold a garden party beneath the rafters of the sunlit foliage. Charles Lamb called them 'the best gardens in London' and Joseph Addison in referring to them remarked: 'To touch on nature's tresses is my blessing'. When Samuel Pepys visited the Walks it was, typically, not the horticultural beauty that caught his eye: 'Very well pleased with the sight of a fine lady that I have often seen walk in Gray's Inn Walks', he noted in his Diary on 17 August 1662. One hundred years ago the Walks were renowned for their rookeries but in 1875 the gardener, through an inadvertent order, felled the trees containing them regardless of the fate of their inhabitants. A bird lover wrote to the press: 'It is to be feared that the habitual users of the garden will soon hear with less sorrow when the same fate, as must happen in the natural course of events, overtakes the Benchers ... So one barbarism engenders another'. His anger had muddled his grammar, but one knows how he might have felt. Let Bacon, the begetter of the Walks, have the last word: God Almighty first planted a garden; and indeed it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment of the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks.