Strand, Holborn and Clerkenwell
The area covered in this section - STRAND ,
HOLBORN and CLERKENWELL - lies on the periphery of
the entertainment zone of the West End and the financial district
of the City. The Strand , as its name suggests, once lay
along the riverbank: it achieved its present-day form when the
Victorians shored up the banks of the Thames to create the
Embankment. Holborn (pronounced "Ho-burn"), to the
northeast, has long been associated with the law, and its Inns
of Court make for an interesting stroll, their archaic, cobbled
precincts exuding the rarefied atmosphere of an Oxbridge college,
and sheltering one of the city's oldest churches, the
twelfth-century Temple Church . Close by the Inns, in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, is the Sir John Soane's Museum , one
of the most memorable and enjoyable of London's small museums,
packed with architectural illusions and an eclectic array of
curios.
Clerkenwell , further to the northeast, is off the
tourist trail, but has a host of unusual sights, including vestiges
of two pre-Fire of London priories, an old prison house and the
Marx Memorial Library , where the exiled Lenin plotted
revolution.
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