The Undercroft

This covered walkway with its carved fan vaults is the Undercroft, lying beneath the Chapel which is on the first floor.  This unusual arrangement may have copied the original Chapel or it might have been a solution to the problem of accommodating large windows which would not be entirely overshadowed by surrounding buildings.  The original plans for the Chapel envisaged chambers on the ground floor before the design was altered to its present form.  Whatever the reason, the Undercroft became (and remains) a popular place for a stroll in inclement weather.  Samuel Pepys mentions in his diary walking here with his lawyer.

For the first 200 hundred years of its existence the Undercroft also served as a burial ground for the Inn.  Figures buried here include John Thurloe, Oliver Cromwell’s spymaster, who was a member of the Inn.   The final interment was in 1852.  The Undercroft served a further (unofficial) purpose in the 18th century when a number of babies were abandoned here by mothers who were unable to support them.  The Inn paid the neighbouring parish to take some of these foundlings but in other cases, the Inn supported the children directly.  These latter children were baptised in the Chapel and a number given the surname ‘Lincoln’.

During World War II the Undercroft was surrounded by sandbags and, on at least once occasion, was a temporary home for people who had been forced to leave their homes because of bombing.