GRAYS INN, an extra-parochial place, in Holborn district, Middlesex; in the metropolis, on the N side of Holborn, 1 mile NW of St. Paul's. Acres, 13. Real property, £14, 373. Pop., 308. Houses, 56. The Inn of Court here, Grays Inn, is gamed after Lord Gray of Walton, of the time of Henry VII. The hall was built in 1560; is plain Tudor; and has a carved oak roof, a rich screen, and a great window full of armorial bearings. The Gardens, or Inn Walks, were planted about 1600; and, in Charles II. 's time, and the times of the Tatler and the Spectator, were a fashionable promenade. The chief entrance from Holborn was then elegant, but is now a squalid habitation of the poor. The great Lord Burleinh and the great Lord Bacon lived in Grays Inn; and a remarkable number of distinguished noblemen, prelates, and judges have been among its inmates.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))