Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1900

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Arthur H. Beavan, in Imperial London, 1901, continues his survey of the Inns of Court, with this look at Lincoln's Inn:

Lincoln's Inn came into being about the year 1310, but of its original buildings there is no trace; the red-brick frontage to Chancery Lane, the fine gatehouse, and quaint inner courts having been erected between the reigns of Henry VII and James I.

Its old Hall, on the site of one still older, dates back to about 1506, and there were held the masques and revels which so delighted our ancestors, when formality was temporarily laid aside.

There used to sit the Lord Chancellor of England, his Court being in appearance a mixture of dignity and meanness, of carved panelling and stucco.

The new Hall, so conspicuous on the Lincoln's Inn Fields' side, completed in 1848, is, with the exception of Westminster Hall, perhaps the finest in London, and in it and the adjoining rooms are some most interesting portraits of former legal magnates.

The library has a splendid collection of law-books and rare manuscripts.

The chapel, whose Gothic designs were by Inigo Jones, was repaired in 1791, and restored in 1882.

Its stained-glass windows were unusually fine, and its organ was of great sweetness of tone.

A thoroughly legal atmosphere pervaded the place, and it possessed an open crypt where students of the Inn used to meet and talk matters over with their clients, and here was buried John Hunter, Oliver Cromwell's secretary of state.

In Lincoln's Inn there is no complication of enclosed courts; it is comparatively open.

Stone Buildings, in Corinthian style, was part of an ambitious design for rebuilding the entire Inn; it had a curious little exit at the right-hand corner up Chancery Lane.

Then there was Old Square, or Old Buildings, near the gatehouse; and New Square with its quaint approach from Carey Street, but this did not form part of the Inn itself.

Around the Hall were gardens admirably kept, in which, although in the heart of London, everything seemed to flourish, probably owing to their sheltered position, and this also applied to the vine and fig-tree in New Square which had for many years braved all kinds of weather.

Next: Legal London in 1900: Inns of Court: The Temple