3-101-154 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Lincoln's Inn Fields - West Side, c1882. Sign reads: To the Catholic Church. '[Inigo] Jones probably designed all the houses originally built on the West side, with the exception of Newcastle House. They are now nearly all plastered over and painted, but what they were originally...can be seen in a house at the extreme south-west corner of the Fields, behind other more modern houses. This house, in its original state, is of red brick, the bases, bands and capitals of the pilasters and the architraves being of stone.' Description by Alfred Marks. The photograph shows the exteriors of no.54 (part of the Portuguese Embassy) and no.55, with no.54 extending over the archway to Sardinia Street. The original house, dating from around 1640, was occupied by the Duke of Bath. It was to suffer damage through rioting in 1688 and later from fire in 1759. In 1824 the building was divided. In the late nineteenth century, all the houses which ran from No.2 Portsmouth Street to No.60 Lincoln's Inn Fields were in danger of demolition, in advance of the Kingsway Scheme of 1909. Protests were made to the London County Council, one of which was by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings...Although the last four houses were reprieved, no. 54 was demolished in 1900.