Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cross to Sardinia Street, which leads to Lincoln's Inn Fields, the largest square in Lon-
don. Halfway along the southern edge you come to the Royal College of Surgeons and
the Hunterian Museum. This is fascinating for anyone interested in Georgian surgery and
medicine, but, with its dissections and human remains, definitely not if you are the slightest
bit squeamish.
Continue to the main entrance of Lincoln's Inn. This 11-acre enclave has been home to
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, one of the four ancient Inns of Court, or associ-
ations of barristers, since at least the fifteenth century.
Sir John Soane's Museum.
It was to Lincoln's Inn that Tom Lefroy, the young man with whom Jane enjoyed a flir-
tation - or perhaps something deeper - returned to his legal studies in 1796.
On 10 January that year Jane wrote to Cassandra to tell her about a ball she had attended
at Manydown:
… I am almost afraid to tell you how my Irish friend [Tom Lefroy] and I behaved. Imagine to yourself
everything most profligate and shocking in the way of dancing and sitting down together... He is a very
gentlemanlike, good-looking, pleasant young man, I assure you.
However, Tom's ambitious family opposed an alliance with the dowerless Miss Austen and
Tom was packed off back to London and his studies before things could become too seri-
ous. Eventually he became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland.
Return to Lincoln's Inn Fields and walk round to the northern edge and Sir John Soane's
Museum. The architect developed these houses as his own home between 1792 and 1824
and they have undergone extensive restoration and renovation. As well as being a busy and
fashionable architect - he designed the Bank of England - Soane was an avid collector of
paintings, casts, curiosities and antiquities, which remain in the elegant, and idiosyncratic,
rooms he designed for them. The result is a highly atmospheric and evocative Regency ex-
perience with which to end your walk.
