Lincoln's Inn Fields - Lindsey House, ca.1882

From: Henry Dixon & Son

RA Collection: Art

"Lindsey House, sometimes called Ancaster House, after a subsequent owner, is assigned to the year 1640. It was built by Jones for Robert Bertie, Earl of Lindsey, who fell on the King's side at the battle of Edgehill. Hatton, writing in 1708, thus describes the house "Lindsey (the Lord) his Dwelling-house is on the W. side of Lincolns-Inn Fields, a handsome Building of the Ionick Order, and a strong beautiful Court Gate, consisting of 6 fine spatious Brick Peers with curious Iron-work betn them, and on the Peers are placed very large and beautiful vases." (New View, II., 627.) An elevation in Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus shows that the house has been much altered. The stone front is now plastered and painted, the entrance door has been widened, the windows cut down, and six removed from the balustrade. The interior of the house, the planning of which was blamed by Walpole, has been completely altered. The house is now divided into two in a singular way, the party wall running up behind the central windows. A chimneypiece in No.59, ascribed by P. Cunningham to Jones, is of a much later date, probably by Ware, as the room contains an alcove which bears a strong resemblance to that in Ashburnham House (Photograph No.66.) It bears the arms of the Shiffner family, a member of which appears from the Gentleman's Magazine for 1759, to have resided in that year in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The house to the south (left) not only of stone but unlike Lindsey House, visibly so, is spoken of by Sir John Soane, writing in 1812 (MS. Lectures in the Soane Museum), as having been built many years later than Lindsey House. Mr B.E. Martin, in a series of most interesting paper on Dicken's London, has indentified No.58, the half of the house nearest to Lindsey House, as that of Tulkinghorn in Bleak House, Scribner's Monthly Magazine, March, 1881, Vol.XXI., p.659.)"

The above description was written by Alfred Marks and was taken from the descriptive letterpress which accompanies the photographs. In 2008, Lindsey House is owned and occupied by a private business.