The Estate
The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn is the oldest of the four Inns of Court, dating back to 1422, and is also the largest with our estate spanning eleven acres.
The Origins of Lincoln’s Inn
Together the four Inns of Court: Lincoln’s Inn, Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray’s Inn form one of the most historic legal organisations in the country, taking their place alongside the church, the monarchy, parliament and the two ancient universities.
Lincoln’s Inn holds the oldest continuous run of historical records. Minutes from meetings of the Inn’s Council and governing bodies have been meticulously recorded in the Black Books, with our earliest volume dating from 1422. It is thought that the Inn existed in some form, although probably not on this site, since the late fourteenth century.
The site at Lincoln’s Inn
The Inn did not originally own the land it occupied. The main part of the Inn was held on a tenancy from the Bishops of Chichester who had been granted the land in 1228. In fact the oldest document in the Archive, dated 16 November 1228, is the grant from Henry III to Ralph de Neville, Bishop of Chichester. The adjacent land to the north and west belonged to the Hospital of Burton Lazars.
The Benchers acquired the freehold of the whole site in 1580. At that time the buildings comprised the Old Hall, the cluster chambers around it, and a Chapel (replaced soon afterwards, with the main entrance being from Chancery Lane via the Old Gatehouse).
The development of the remainder of the eleven acre site continued as and when finances permitted and opportunities arose, through to the twenty-first century. Coupled with the fact that the Inn did not lose any buildings in the two world wars, this has resulted in a picturesque variety of styles and periods.