Paper Buildings

Paper Buildings are a set of chambers located in the Inner Temple in Temple, London. They were initially constructed in 1609.^[1] Paper Buildings appear in A Tale of Two Cities and Barnaby Rudge.^[2]

Oil painting of Paper Buildings, circa 1725

Cars parked at Paper Buildings

On 6 March 1838, about twenty sets of chambers were destroyed, including some valuable libraries, important documents and so forth. The fire originated in the chambers of W. H. Maule MP.^[3]

Paper Buildings are on the site of Heyward's Buildings, constructed in 1610.^[4] The "paper" part of the name comes from the fact that they were built from timber, lath and plaster, a construction method known as "paperwork". A fire in 1838 destroyed three of the buildings, which were immediately replaced with a design by Robert Smirke, with Sydney Smirke later adding two more buildings.^[5] A famous resident of (at the time) Heyward's Buildings was John Selden, who was one of the original tenants and shared a set of chambers with Heyward himself.^[6]

3 Paper Buildings

John Galsworthy had chambers here from November 1894, where he wrote a short story called "Dick Denver's Idea", which was his first work of fiction.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]} MI5 was located here from 21 February 1911.^[13]

3PB (3 Paper Buildings) is a barristers Chambers which has been in existence since Christmas Day 1892. There currently are 152 full-time members, 9 of whom are King's Counsel.^[14]

14 Paper Buildings

The Common Bail Office^[15] and The King's Bench Office^[16] were located here.