Lincoln's Inn Library
Lincoln’s Inn Library in London is the city's oldest working library, housed in an 1845 neo-Tudor building designed by Philip Hardwick and holding over 150,000 legal volumes. First recorded in 1471, the library was expanded by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1872. Its collection features 63 medieval manuscripts left in 1676 by Sir Matthew Hale, alongside a modern glass link honoring early female barrister Mercy Ashworth.
London · from the walk “Beneath the Bar: Lincoln's Inn & Legal London” · audio ~4 min · Generated
Lincoln's Inn Library, London WC2A 3TN
- Queen Victoria officially opened the Philip Hardwick-designed Lincoln's Inn Library building on October 30, 1845.
- Sir George Gilbert Scott extended Lincoln's Inn Library in 1872 to eighty feet long and forty-four feet high.
- Sir Matthew Hale bequeathed his collection of sixty-three medieval manuscripts to Lincoln's Inn Library upon his death in 1676.
- On January 26, 1923, fifty-four-year-old Mercy Ashworth became one of the first women called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn.
When was the Lincoln's Inn Library building in London opened by Queen Victoria?
You are standing before the oldest working library in Lincoln... and quite possibly in all of London. This is Lincoln's Inn Library... a place where law, architecture, and six centuries of human drama are woven into every shelf.......... How old, exactly? Well, the library was first mentioned in the Inn's records in fourteen seventy one... more than five hundred and fifty years ago. Back then it occupied a small room beside the Old Hall. It later moved to a set of chambers in Stone Buildings, before finally landing here, in this grand neo-Tudor building designed by Philip Hardwick. Queen Victoria herself opened it on the thirtieth of October, eighteen forty five. She recorded it in her diary, calling it "a very handsome room" where she was placed on a throne and received an address.......... But the library outgrew itself. In eighteen seventy one and seventy two, Sir George Gilbert Scott... the same architect behind the Albert Memorial and the Midland Grand Hotel at Saint Pancras... extended the building three bays eastward, nearly Doubling its size. At that point it stood eighty feet long, forty feet wide, and forty four feet high. Three tiers of iron shelving, spiral staircases connecting the floors... a cathedral of legal knowledge.......... And what knowledge! The collection holds approximately one hundred and fifty thousand volumes, including over one thousand rare manuscripts. The jewel is the Hale Manuscripts... the personal collection of Sir Matthew Hale, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, who bequeathed his library to the Inn upon his death in sixteen seventy six. Among those treasures are sixty three medieval manuscripts.......... Now, look for the modern glazed link to the north. That connects to the Ashworth Centre, and it carries a powerful story. It is named after Mercy Ashworth, who on the twenty sixth of January, nineteen twenty three... alongside Mithan Tata... became one of the First two women ever called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn. She was fifty four years old and had waited a very long time. The glazed link did something else remarkable... it allowed wheelchair access between the main library floor and the basement stacks for the First time in the building's history.......... One more secret. Nearby, beneath the Inn's chapel, there is an open undercroft where, in the eighteenth century, desperate mothers would leave newborn babies they could not care for. The Inn's account books record payments as early as seventeen thirty two for caring for these foundlings. And every abandoned child discovered here was given the same surname... Lincoln.