George Moore moved into 8 King’s Bench Walk in the spring of 1889. Its heavy wooden double doors opened into a stone stairway. Three flights up he reached his bachelor pad: a garret apartment facing south. A sitting room, lacking the high ceilings of the lower floors, looked through recessed windows towards a courtyard filled with lawn, trees and gardens reaching down to the Thames. A small bedroom and kitchen faced another building in the rear; the draft afforded by windows opening in opposite directions gave slight relief from the summer heat, which was described by occupants when I visited as practically unbearable. In winter George was warmed by a small coal fireplace.
No. 8 was built in 1782 and is now in the oldest surviving part of the Temple. Its generally uncomfortable condition in the 1890s had the benefits of low rent, convenient location, and quiet for writing. Moore wrote serveral books and many newspaper columns while living here.
Danes Inn, his London address 1883-1887, was a few hundred yards away from this location, off the Strand.
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