Lincoln's Inn Fields
Coordinates: 51°30′58″N 0°07′00″W / 51.5161°N 0.1166°W
Lincoln's Inn Fields is the largest public square in London. It was laid out in the 1630s under the initiative of the speculative builder and contractor William Newton, "the first in a long series of entrepreneurs who took a hand in developing London", as Sir Nikolaus Pevsner observes. The original plan for "laying out and planting" these fields, drawn by the hand of Inigo Jones, was said still to be seen in Lord Pembroke's collection at Wilton House in the 19th century, but is untraced. The grounds, which had remained private property, were acquired by London County Council in 1895. It is today managed by the London Borough of Camden and forms part of the southern boundary of that borough with the City of Westminster.
Lincoln's Inn Fields takes its name from the adjacent Lincoln's Inn, of which the private gardens are separated from the Fields by a perimeter wall and a large gatehouse.
The grassed area in the centre of the Fields contains a court for tennis and netball and a bandstand. It was previously used for corporate events, which are no longer permitted. Cricket and other sports are thought to have been played here in the 18th century.
When originally laid out, Lincoln's Inn Fields was part of fashionable London. The completion of the houses that surrounded it proceeded at a leisurely pace, interrupted by the English Civil War: In 1659 James Cooper, Robert Henley, and Francis Finch and other owners of "certain parcels of ground in the fields, commonly called Lincoln's Inn Fields", were exempted from all forfeitures and penalties which they might incur in regard to any new buildings they might erect on three sides of the same fields, previously to the 1st of October in that year, provided that they paid for the public service one year's full value for every such house within one month of its erection; and provided that they should convey the 'residue of the said fields' to the Society of Lincoln's Inn, for laying the same into walks for common use and benefit, whereby the annoyances which formerly have been in the same fields will be taken away, and passengers there for the future better secured." The oldest building from this early period is Lindsey House, 59–60 Lincoln's Inn Fields, which was built in 1640 and has been attributed to Inigo Jones. The builder may have been David Cunningham, 1st Baronet of Auchinhervie, a friend of the mason-sculptor Nicholas Stone, who also supervised the rebuilding of Berkhamsted Place for Charles I. It derives its name from a period of ownership in the 18th century by the earls of Lindsey.
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