Lincoln's Inn Old Square, ca.1876

From: A.& J. Bool

RA Collection: Art

"This photograph shows the buildings to the north of the Gate House, the subject of No.11. "The old buildings erected at various periods between the reigns of Henry VII. and James I. have their chief frontage on the east, about 500ft. in extent in Chancery Lane" ( Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archælogical Society, iv.446).



There is a tradition that Ben Jonson, fresh from his college at Cambridge, wrought as a bricklayer on the buildings of Lincoln's Inn, "when trowel in one hand, he had a book in his pocket." "On the garden wall of Lincoln's Inn, next to Chancery Lane," says Aubrey; "in the new structure of Lincolns's Inn," says Fuller. Mr Peter Cunningham, in his Handbook of London., accordingly conjectures that Jonson may have a hand in the building "chambers adjoining" the Gate House - these it is to be presumed. But though there is no doubt that Jonson, taken into his father-in-law's business, actually worked as a bricklayer for about a year, the Lincoln's Inn story has in it so much that is mythical that it would perhaps be unsafe to put belief in it. ( Memoir by Gifford, prefixed to works, ed.1816, i. p. v. -xii.)

The buttresses on the spectator's left are those of Inigo Jones's chapel, an interesting example of "bastard Gothic."

The above description, written by Alfred Marks in 1881, was taken from the letterpress which accompanies the photographs.