Adjoining the Fields is New Square, which used to be known as Little Lincoln's Inn Fields, and earlier still as Fickett's Field or Croft. It was built in 1687. Fickett's Fields occupied a wider area, and until 1620 they, like the larger Fields, were a place of execution. The site of New Square was planted and laid out in very early days. The Knights of St. John in 1376 made it into a walking place, planted with trees, for the clerks, apprentices, and students of the law. In 1399 a certain Roger Legit was fined and imprisoned for setting mantraps with a "malicious intention to maim the said clerks and others," as they strolled in their shaded walks. This Square, like all others, went through phases of being unkept and untidy, but was finally remodelled, into its present neat form, in 1845.
