Lincoln's Inn Fields: Knights Templar

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Sir Walter Besant, in The Fascination of London, published in 1903, continues his survey of Holborn by turning his attention to Lincoln's Inn Fields:

All the ground on which the present Lincoln's Inn Field's square is built formed part of Fickett's Field, which was anciently the jousting-place of the Knights Templars.

A curious petition of the reign of Edward III shows us that then it was a favourite recreation-ground or promenade for clerks, apprentices, students, as well as the citizens.

In this petition a complaint is made that one Roger Leget had laid caltrappes or engines of iron in a trench, to the danger of those who walked in the fields.

Inigo Jones was entrusted by King James I to form a square of houses which should be worthy of so fine a situation.

Before this time it appears that there had been one or two irregular buildings.

Inigo Jones conceived the curious idea of giving his square the exact size of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, and it is accordingly the largest square in London.

But when he had completed the west side only, the unsettled state of the country hindered further progress, and for many years the land lay waste, and was unenclosed save by wooden posts and rails; during this period it was the daily and nightly haunt of all the beggars, rogues, pickpockets, wrestlers, and vile vagrants in London.

Gay thus speaks of it:

"Where Lincoln's Inn, wide space, is rail'd around,
Cross not with venturous step; there oft is found
The lurking thief, who, while the daylight shone,
Made the walls echo with his begging tone:
That crutch, which late compassion moved, shall wound
Thy bleeding head, and fell thee to the ground.
Though thou art tempted by the linkman's call,
Yet trust him not along the lonely wall;
In the midway he'll quench the flaming brand,
And share the booty with the pilfering band.
Still keep the public streets where oily rays,
Shot from the crystal lamp, o'erspread the ways."

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