Red Lion Court – the alleyway leading north from Fleet Street – is named after The Red Lion Tavern, which from the late 16th century until the 1960s stood on land adjacent to what is now No.18. Of course, that was the latest of its several incarnations, the area having been razed to the ground by the Great Fire of London of 1666. After the fire, the site now occupied by No.18 was redeveloped by Nicholas Barbon (d. 1698), three of whose ornate ceilings are preserved in the current building. (History remembers Barbon principally as the founder of fire insurance.) At the time, there were three properties.

 

The first legal professional residents, in the 1720s, were Serjeants-at-Law Sir Nathan Wright and William Hawkins. Wright went on to become Lord Chancellor, and Hawkins is remembered for his Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown, as well as for successfully defending – twice – Messrs. Huggins and Bainbridge, Wardens of Fleet Prison, who were tried for the murders of two inmates.

 

From the late 18th century, the site was occupied by a succession of printers and publishers, including Abraham Valpy (1787-1854). He published the well-known series, the Delphin (and Variorum) Classics, and his trademark – a lit oil lamp with the Latin words alere flammam (“nourish the flame [of learning]”) can be seen on the exterior (on the right-hand edge of the above picture). Around 1837, Valpy retired, and the three properties were merged as one and renamed 18 Red Lion Court. Subsequently, until 1968, the scientific printing house, Taylor & Francis, had its offices here.

 

Following a serious fire in 1971, the buildings were carefully restored. The barristers’ chambers now known as Chambers of David Etherington QC have been in occupation since 1997.