Elizabethan Housing Print by Miroslav Sasek

This is Staple Inn, High Holborn, London. The term ‘staple’ refers to a system of trade and taxation which operated in Tudor England (1485-1603). Staple Inn dates from 1585 and was once the ‘wool staple’ – the place where wool was weighed and taxed. But the building is also symbolic – just as the red-double decker busses in front of it – of ‘ye olde’ London. Think of London, and black and white Elizabethan buildings will invariably come to mind.