Hradsky has suggested that this large-scale and extravagant design was intended to catch the eye of the Society of Lincoln's Inn, and that Adam had then intended to submit a more modest and affordable version of the scheme, 'a much condensed version', as suggested by the smaller pencil-drawn variant plan on this drawing.

The rooms on this are not labelled on the plan, but it has been suggested by various scholars that the round rooms were intended as libraries and/or record offices. The central colonnaded round room is reminiscent of Adam's design for the rotunda within the Edinburgh Register House, which was designed at around the same time. The large central rectangular hall was intended for ceremonial purposes and dinners, and the pre-existing seventeenth-century chapel is identifiable within the right-hand cross range from the footprint of its undercroft. In the nearside of Lincoln's Inn Fields we can see that Adam intended to convert the gardens into a piazza.

Adam's scheme for Lincoln's Inn was not executed, and instead, Sir Robert Taylor's designs were built in 1774-80. See scheme notes.

Group

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

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