Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 3
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter VII: Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Chapter VII: Lincoln's Inn Fields.
| |
This open space, which happily still serves to supply fresh air to the residents of the crowded courts of and , affords in its central enclosure of the largest and finest public gardens in London, and in point of antiquity is perhaps the oldest. In , we find from Charles Knight's James Cooper, Robert Henley, and Francis Finch, Esquires, and other owners of
| |
It has often been stated, and repeated until generally accepted as true, that the square of was designedly laid out so as to be exactly of the size of the base of the Great Pyramid. remarks Horace Walpole, but a reference to Colonel Howard-Vyse's work will show that the fanciful idea is untrue, the Fields measuring feet by , while the Great Pyramid covers a space of feet square. | |
The was formed in the century by no less a person than Inigo Jones, to whom, along with other gentlemen and or members of the Court, a special commission was issued by James I., for the purpose of having the ground laid out and improved under his direction. Several of the houses on the west and south sides are of his design. as we learn from Northouck, The west side was originally known as , the south as , and the north as Newman's Row; but the names dropped out of use at the close of the last century. | |
The original plan for these fields, drawn by the hand of Inigo Jones, is still to be seen in Lord Pembroke's collection at Wilton House. The chief feature in it is Lindsey (afterwards Ancaster) House, in the centre of the west side, now divided into houses and cut up into chambers for lawyers. It is unchanged in all its external features, except that the balustrade along the front of the roof has lost the handsome vases with which it was formerly surmounted. | |
Among the noble families who lived in this spot was that of the Berties, Earls of Lindsey and afterwards Dukes of Ancaster; but they seem to have migrated to in the reign of Charles II. In this square at various dates lived also the great Lord Somers; Digby, Earl of Bristol; Montague. Earl of Sandwich; the Countess of Middlesex, and the Duke of Newcastle; and in the | |
p.45 | present century Lords Kenyon and Erskine, Sir John Soane, and Mr. Spencer Percival. A century ago Lord Northington, Lord Chancellor, lived in a house on the south side of the square, on the site of the Royal . At the birth of her son, Charles Beauclerk, afterwards the great Duke of St. Albans, Nell Gwynne was living in lodgings in , being up to that time regularly engaged at the theatre close by. |
It is to be feared that although is said to be the largest and handsomest square, not only in London, but in Europe, it has not borne a very good character in olden times. At all events Gay speaks of the Fields in his as the head-quarters of beggars by day and of robbers at night:--
| |
Blount tells us, in his that he used to see idle fellows here playing at and it is clear, from more than contemporary allusion in popular comedies, that it was the regular haunt of cripples, with crutches, who lived by mendicancy, which they carried on in the most barefaced, if not intimidating, manner. Here, too, according to Peter Cunningham,
| |
We occasionally find in the literature of the century allusions to the and of . These were, according to Mr. John Timbs, names given to troops of idle vagrants by whom the were infested; and readers of the will hardly need to be reminded of the beggar of that place, who, having disabled himself in his right leg, asks alms all day, in order to get a warm supper at night. The if we may accept the statement of the same authority, were who had suffered in the battles of the Great Rebellion, and found a ready prey in the people of fashion and quality as they drove by. | |
The to which Gay alludes in his poem, it should be here remarked, was only a series of wooden posts and rails, the iron rails not having been put up until the year , when the money for so enclosing and adorning the Fields was raised by a rate on the inhabitants. The plan of the railing, its gates, and its ornaments, was submitted to and approved by the Duke of Newcastle, the minister of George II., who was of the residents of the square. We are told that before were so railed in they were used as a training-ground by horse-breakers, and that many robberies were committed in its neighbourhood. And Ireland, in his tells us a story which shows us that they were surrounded by a rough and lawless set of people:
| |
Peter Cunningham, in his tells another story which shows that the bad reputation of these Fields at the time of their enclosure was of more than half a century in standing: he writes, And to go back a little further still. he adds, Here, too, in , a far worthier man, whom it is almost a sin to mention in such company, Lord William Russell, laid his noble head on the block, [extra_illustrations.3.46.1] standing by his side. The reader of Burnet's will not forget his description of the scene of Lord William Russell's execution in this square. He writes, The death of this patriotic nobleman must for ever remain as a blot of deep dye on those who commanded his execution. | |
We learn incidentally that early in the last century Betterton and his company were playing at the in , when it was proposed to him by Vanbrugh and Congreve, as builder and writer, to join in starting a new theatre in the . | |
On the south side of the square, the Hall of the Royal is the principal ornament. The building was erected, or rather rebuilt, in -, under the superintendence of the late Sir Charles Barry. The was chartered in the year , since which time many valuable advantages have been conferred upon the society by the Legislature. The front of the hall consists of a noble portico, with fluted columns, whilst along the top of the edifice is a bold entablature, with enriched cornice. To the left of the entrance-hall are or spacious rooms for the use of the secretary and other officials, and on the right a doorway gives access to the museum, which forms perhaps the chief feature of the building. This occupies large and lofty rooms, lighted from the top, and each surrounded by galleries, in which are displayed, as well as in cases on the ground-floor, the valuable collection of objects of which the museum consists. The basis of this collection was originally formed by [extra_illustrations.3.46.3] , whose [extra_illustrations.3.46.4] was situated in . It was purchased from his widow at his death, by the Government, for the sum of , and presented to the . says the writer of an admirable account of Hunter and his museum in the This, it may be added, has been considerably augmented by subsequent purchases, and also by gifts to the college; so that it may now be fairly said to form the richest collection of the kind in existence. | |
Among the objects of curiosity preserved here are the skeletons of several human beings and animals, which during the time of their existence had obtained some celebrity. Among them may be mentioned Jonathan Wild, the notorious thiefcatcher; Mlle. Crachani, a Sicilian dwarf, who at the age of years was just inches high; Charles Byrne, or O'Brien, the Irish giant, who at his death measured feet inches; and also the gigantic elephant which was formerly exhibited on the stage at , and afterwards in the menagerie at Exeter Change, where, in , its destruction caused so much sympathy at the time. Its death was effected by shooting, but not until the animal had received upwards of musket and rifle shots. The skeleton of this animal is feet inches high. | |
In the room of the museum is a very lifelike marble statue of John Hunter, the founder of the collection, by H. Weekes, Esq., R.A., erected by public subscription in . The library of the institution is a noble room extending over the entrance-hall and adjoining offices, and contains a few portraits of eminent surgeons. The council room also has a few portraits hanging upon its walls, and also a cartoon of Holbein's great picture of the of which the original is in the council room of the Barbers' Company in . The lectures to students, of which there are courses | |
p.47 [extra_illustrations.3.47.1] [extra_illustrations.3.47.2] | during the year, take place in the theatre, a lofty but somewhat contracted-looking place, with wainscoted walls, crimson seats, and a square-panelled ceiling, in the centre of which is a lantern or skylight. The museum, it should be added, is not intended as a place of exhibition, but a place of study. Members of both Houses of Parliament, the dignitaries of the church and law, members of learned and scientific bodies, physicians, surgeons, &c., have not only the privilege of visiting it personally; but of introducing visitors. |
On the western side of , a little south of Lindsey House, is a heavy and gloomy archway (said, however, to be the work of Inigo Jones), which leads into . On the south side of this, close to the archway, stands the Sardinian Chapel, the oldest Roman in London. It was originally attached to the residence of the Sardinian Ambassador, and dates as a building from the year . It is well known that during the reigns of the later Tudors and the Stuarts, the Roman Catholics in England were forbidden to hear mass, or have chapels of their own for the performance of their worship. They therefore resorted in large numbers to the chapels of the foreign ambassadors, where their attendance was at connived at, and afterwards gradually tolerated and allowed. The ambassador's residence stood in , and originally the only way into it lay through the house. In the Gordon Riots, in , this house and the chapel were attacked and partially destroyed, as being the chief resort of the Roman Catholic nobility and gentry, and of the Bishop or Vicar Apostolic of the London district, who lived in a small house in seclusion in , . After the suppression of the riots, the chapel was rebuilt and enlarged westwards, by adding to it the ground formerly occupied by the ambassador's stables. During the years of the present century this chapel formed the centre of the Roman Catholic worship and of the charities of that Church; but it was superseded by the erection of , , in , and subsequently by the erection of other Roman Catholic Churches in , Clerkenwell, Soho, &c. It formerly had a fine choir, and still shows in its fine ecclesiastical plate and pictures some remains of its former importance. It has now gradually come to be a chapel for the Catholics of its immediate neighbourhood, many of whom are foreigners. A body of Franciscans, we are told, was established in connection with the Sardinian Chapel, near , in the rein of James II. | |
As late as the reign of George II. there was on this side of the square an archway with a tenement attached to it, known in common parlance as It was taken down in , in con, sequence of the dilapidated state into which it had fallen. Its last permanent tenant, some century before, as we learn from the of that year, was an attorney or money-lender, Jonathan Crouch, a man who, in the days of Civil War squeezed the life-blood out of his victims, regard less whether they were Puritans or Royalists. He over-reached himself in an effort to secure a rich and youthful heiress as a wife for his son; and his melancholy end in a death-struggle with the rival for the young lady's hand forms of the most sensational tales in Waters' The affair caused an intense excitement at the time, and it is said that the house, or rather den, of Crouch in the Devil's Gap could never afterwards find a tenant for many a year. | |
On the same side of the square was, early in the present century, the established by Mr. Thelwall, who, having been in early life a somewhat revolutionary reformer, later turned his attention to philanthropy, and taught elocution with success. All remembrance, however, of the institution and its founder, has long since passed away. | |
At the northern end of the west side, at the corner of , over the pathway of which end of it is carried on arches, the visitor will be sure to note a large and handsome mansion which for the last half century has formed the headquarters of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. It was originally built by the Marquis of Powis in , no doubt on account of its nearness to the Sardinian Chapel, as the family were at that time Roman Catholics. It afterwards became the residence of the Duke of Newcastle, the Prime Minister of George II.'s reign, after whom it was called Newcastle House. | |
Nearly in the centre of the north side of the square stands the [extra_illustrations.3.47.3] founded in , by a bequest of [extra_illustrations.3.47.4] , and called after his name. The son of a common bricklayer in a Berkshire village, he rose into celebrity as an architect, and designed, among other buildings, the , and most of the terraces in the . He was also clerk of the works [extra_illustrations.3.47.5] | |
p.48 | of , and architect generally to the Houses of Parliament and other public buildings. He was subsequently elected Professor of Architecture to the Royal Academy. All his life long he had been a collector of books, statues, pictures, coins, medals, and other curiosities mostly antique, with which he stored the house where he lived and died. The museum, filled from top to bottom with a beautifully arranged collection of models of art in every phase and form, small as it is, may be said to be almost as useful to the art student as is the Louvre at Paris. And yet, standing in the centre of London, it is but little known, though open to the public gratuitously. It is open always to students in painting, sculpture, and architecture; and (on application) to the |
| general public on every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in April, May, June, and on Wednesdays in February, March, July, and August. Professional and amateur students can obtain from the curator, or from any of the trustees, permission to copy any of the pictures and other works of art. | |
In Sir John Soane obtained an Act of Parliament for settling and preserving his museum, library, and works of art The building may be distinguished from the others in the row in which it stands from the peculiar semi- Gothic style in which it is erected. Between the windows of the ground and of the floor are fragments of Gothic corbels from ancient buildings, | |
p.49 [extra_illustrations.3.49.1] | erected, probably, about the close of the century. Upon each side of the gallery of the floor are copies in terra-cotta from the Caryatides in front of the Temple of Pandrosus, at Athens. |
The walls of the entrance-hall are coloured to imitate porphyry, and decorated with casts in plaster after the antique, medallion reliefs, and other sculptures. The dining-room and library, which may be considered as room, being separated only by projecting piers formed into book-cases, is the apartment entered. The ceiling is formed into compartments, enriched by paintings by the late Henry Howard, R.A. Over the chimney-piece is a portrait of Sir John Soane, painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, in , almost the last picture painted by that distinguished artist; and beneath this is a highly-finished model in plaster of the Board of Trade and Privy Council Offices, &c., at , being a design for completing the buildings north and south of , made by Sir John Soane in . This room contains a large number of plaster models of ancient Greek and Roman buildings, such as the Parthenon, the | |
| Pantheon, and the Tower of the Winds; and there is also a large model in cork of part of the ancient city of Pompeii. | |
The next room contains a considerable collection of marble fragments of Greek and Roman sculpture, of antique bronzes, and some curious natural productions. In what is called the Monu. ment Court, the walls of which are enriched with various fragments of ancient buildings and pieces of sculpture, is an architectural group about feet high, comprising works of various forms and nations. | |
of the principal apartments in the basement of the building is called the Sepulchral Chamber; and in the centre of it is the [extra_illustrations.3.49.2] discovered by the traveller [extra_illustrations.3.49.3] in , in a royal tomb in a valley near Thebes. It was purchased by Sir John Soane for the sum of . The pictures are chiefly in the rooms on the and floors, and among them will be seen several by [extra_illustrations.3.49.4] , Turner, and Sir Charles Eastlake, and a large number of architectural designs by Sir John Soane himself. | |
Near the above building stands a palatial | |
p.50 [extra_illustrations.3.50.1] |
carcass, an incomplete edifice once designed to form part of the Inns of Court Hotel. Its appearance is thus graphically described by a writer in of the illustrated newspapers:--
|
Parallel to the northern side of the and lying between them and , is an almost untenanted row of houses or buildings, now chiefly turned into stables, but formerly dignified by the name of years ago it was a place of very bad reputation, and was attacked by the London apprentices in . The loose character of and its inhabitants is a frequent subject of allusion in the plays of Dryden and , and occasionally in Butler's and Ned Ward's But is not without at least distinguished inmate. At all events we read in Philips's that the author of
| |
At each end of this park are narrow footentrances leading into , called the Great and Little Turnstiles, names which bear testimony to the former rurality of the spot, when turnstiles were put up to let pedestrians pass through, whilst they checked the straying of the cattle that fed there. Mr. John Timbs says that Turnstile Alley, when built, was but afterwards both of these narrow thoroughfares became the homes and haunts of booksellers and publishers. of these booksellers, Cartwright, was also known in his day as a player, and he left his plays and his pictures to Alleyn's College, of at Dulwich. | |
The new law buildings belonging to the Society of harmonise finely with the associations of the neighbourhood; and these, with the low wall of Gardens, occupy the eastern side of the square. Before speaking of these buildings, we may add that this fine open space was very nearly being lost to the public a few years since, for in the late Sir Charles Barry designed a magnificent structure for the New Courts of Law--which even then were in contemplation--to occupy the centre of . Nearly years before, a question had been mooted whether it would not be possible to establish an Academy of Painting, the head-quarters of which should have covered the self-same spot. Happily Providence preserved the square on each occasion of danger. | |
It has always been a matter of complaint that the access to so noble a square on all sides should have been so wretched as it is. It has no direct street leading into it from either or the Strand, though at the north-east and north-west corners there are narrow footways, known as the Old and New Turnstiles. Indeed, access to it is to be had only from , by way of . Northouck, as far back as the year , suggested that of , with the indifferent state of the buildings between, furnished a hint for continuing in a straight line uniformly to the south-west corner, instead of the narrow, irregular, and dirty avenue through and . But up to the end of the year of grace nothing has been done, though it is supposed that the erection of the New Law Courts may possibly expedite the formation of a new street or in this direction. Such an improvement, it must be clear to the most casual observer, is far more necessary for the improvement of our metropolis than the demolition of . | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.3.46.1] Dr. Tillotson [] Pepys writes, Nov. 20, 1660, Mr. Shepley and I to the new play-house near Lincoln's Inn Fields, which was formerly Gibbon's Tennis Court. . . . Here I saw for the first time one Moone (Mohun), who is said to be the best actor in the world, lately come over with the king; and, indeed, it is the finest play-house, I believe, that ever was in England. [extra_illustrations.3.46.3] John Hunter [extra_illustrations.3.46.4] museum [extra_illustrations.3.47.1] Lincoln's Inn Fields- bits [extra_illustrations.3.47.2] House of John Soane [] The marquis was outlawed by William and Mary for his fidelity to James II., whose exile he shared, and by whom he was created, after his abdication, Duke of Powis. He was the father of the foundress of the Convent of Augustinian nuns at Bruges, and also of the Countess of Nithsdale, who so nobly effected the escape of her husband from the Tower of London while under sentence of death. [extra_illustrations.3.47.3] museum [extra_illustrations.3.47.4] Sir John Soane [extra_illustrations.3.47.5] Soane's Monument [extra_illustrations.3.49.1] The Soane Museum [extra_illustrations.3.49.2] splendid ancient Egyptian sarcophagus [extra_illustrations.3.49.3] Belzoni [extra_illustrations.3.49.4] Hogarth [extra_illustrations.3.50.1] Mr. Tulkingham's House |
