Lincoln's Inn Chapel — Secret Stained Glass

Lincoln's Inn Chapel in London features rare 17th-century painted glass created by Flemish masters Bernard and Abraham van Linge, whose original panels survived a 1915 German Zeppelin attack. The chapel foundation stone was laid in 1620 by poet John Donne, who preached its consecration in 1623. Protected during World War II by removal, the building also retains shrapnel scars from World War I and an 18th-century vaulted undercroft.

London · from the walk “Secrets of Lincoln's Inn Fields” · audio ~3 min · Generated

Lincoln's Inn Chapel, Lincoln's Inn, London WC2A 3TL

Who laid the foundation stone for Lincoln's Inn Chapel in 1620?

You are standing in one of London's best-kept secrets... a chapel hidden behind the walls of Lincoln's Inn, where barristers have trained for over six hundred years. Most Londoners walk right past it. But step inside, and you will find stained glass that survived bombs, wars, and nearly four centuries of history.......... Who built this place? The foundation stone was laid in sixteen twenty by none other than John Donne... yes, That John Donne. The poet famous for writing scandalous erotic verse before converting to Anglicanism and rising to become Dean of Saint Paul's. He recorded the laying of this very stone in his diary. And three years later, on Ascension Day, sixteen twenty-three, Donne returned to preach the consecration sermon.......... Now here's where it gets extraordinary. Donne was such a celebrity preacher that the crowd trying to hear him packed this tiny chapel to the Rafters. The London diarist John Chamberlain recorded that there was such a crush of noblemen and gentlemen that two or three were, quote, "taken up dead for the time with extreme press and thronging." One man, Sir Francis Lee, a Member of Parliament, collapsed and had to be carried out! And there is no record of Donne stopping his sermon. He likely just... kept preaching.......... Now, look at the windows. These are not ordinary stained glass. They are Painted glass, created by the Flemish brothers Bernard and Abraham van Linge, who fled France in sixteen twenty-one during religious persecution. They painted vitreous enamels onto clear glass and then fired it... a rare technique. You can see their work in several Oxford colleges too.......... But only Two of the original seventeenth-century panels survive in this chapel. On the thirteenth of October, nineteen fifteen, at nine twenty-five in the evening, a German Zeppelin dropped bombs right into Old Square outside. The explosion shattered the chapel windows and left shrapnel scars you can Still see pockmarking the chapel walls today. If you step outside, look for a small round bronze disc in the tarmac... that marks the Exact spot where the bomb struck.......... And here is an incredible twist. Having learned from the First World War, when the Second World War began, the Inn removed All the remaining glass and hid it away for safekeeping. That decision saved these four-hundred-year-old masterpieces from the Blitz.......... One more thing before you move on. Beneath your feet is a vaulted Undercroft, where in the eighteenth century, desperate mothers would leave abandoned babies... hoping the lawyers of the Inn would care for them, or deliver them to the nearby Foundling Hospital. Every child discovered here was given the same surname... Lincoln.

Unlocked for everyone by someone who walked here

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