Thursday, 1st February, 2018
Once before I went to Sir John Soane’s museum when it was supposed to be a late closing but I got the date wrong that time. This time I double checked my facts and got the bus to Holborn Station to make my way to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I was a bit puzzled on why the areas devoted mainly to the legal professions were called Inn (Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn being the ones I know). It turns out that this refers to the ‘Inns of court.’ These are associations that lawyers must belong to and in these fields there are facilities and offices they can use. That’s sort of how it is. We don’t know which is the oldest since apparently there’s a tradition to not tell. However, it seems to date back to the 1300 or 1400s with the squares and buildings themselves in the 1500s. Someone is going to correct me!
I knew nothing about Sir John Soane or his house/museum before visiting but I had heard it was worth a visit and I had a free day.
Lincoln’s Inn Fields itself covers 11 acres within a lovely large square set off by itself not far from the Royal Courts of Justice. The green space is very large and all around the perimeter sit beautiful houses. It’s far more grand than Gray’s Inn Fields.
Today I was sloppy with photos since I wasn’t alone. I shot wildly and quickly.
Sir John Soane’s museum is built inside the walls of his home. Sir John was a famous architect – he designed the original Bank of England, and Dulwich Picture Gallery. He bought three houses in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, demolished and rebuilt them almost two hundred years ago. He requested the houses be left as they were and become a museum.
Sadly, no cameras or phones are allowed. At the door they ask you to turn off your phone and then present you with a large clear plastic bag to put your bag into. A bit annoying to have to carry this around in your hand (I carry my bag on my shoulder so I can avoid that) but them’s the rules.
And it is quite a museum, being absolutely crammed with artifacts since SJS was a great collector – statues, curios, and even a tomb – that of Pharoah Seti II. Oh and small galleries with paintings by such as Hogarth, Turner and Canaletto. In various small ante rooms and courtyards and libraries, all of these things sit from floor to ceiling. It’s overwhelming, slightly oppressive, and very fascinating.
In one room they had an exhibition of Egyptology – items collected by Soanes and a character called Bolzoni. A video showed how they had created a digital image of the Seti sarcophagus and that the replica they would make from this would go back to where it came from. I was sad to hear the original place would get the replica and not the real sarcophagus. Plunder…
They do candlelight tours on some evenings. It would be a creepy tour to take but there it is. Besides the rooms of collections, there are the regular rooms that they lived in. These too seemed dark and heavy to me. Not a single spot to relax in. I wonder how his family life was.
I can’t share photos but this is a crazily dizzying look at the museum, if you want a taste of it.
We walked from the museum to Liverpool Street. Near the museum, they are still building the very luxurious Lincoln apartments – who will live there?! And then along a very interesting little street before you get to Fleet Street.
A little bit more about Temple Bar. It was built by Sir Christopher Wren and marked the gateway to the City of London for 200 years. Its been moved a few times but in 2004 it was dismantled again and rebuilt as a gateway to the central piazza at the Paternoster Square besides St Paul’s Cathedral. It’s got an interesting history of its own. At the top of the arch, severed heads were displayed on spikes.
No special lunch today. We grabbed a snack at M&S and Sainsburys respectively and onwards to home.
I remember walking the Inns of Court areas a long time ago, including the (largely reconstructed) Templar’s Church. It’s a very pleasant walk, and there were a lot of places to eat or take out sandwiches and such to eat while sitting on one of the benches.