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Bishopsgate was one of the eastern gates in London Wall. The gate's name is traditionally attributed to Earconwald, who was Bishop of London in the 7th century. It was first built in Roman Britain times and marked the beginning of Ermine Street, the ancient road running from London to York (Eboracum). The gate was rebuilt twice in the 15th and 18th centuries, but was permanently demolished in 1760.
Bishopsgate gave its name to the Bishopsgate Ward of the City of London. The ward is traditionally divided into Bishopsgate Within, inside the line of the former wall, and Bishopsgate Without beyond it. Bishopsgate Without is described as part of London's East End.Beyond the Tower: a history of East London. by John Marriot. In it refers back to 18th century descriptions of Bishopsgate Without and Shoreditch as EE districts The ancient boundaries of the City wards were reviewed in 1994 and 2013, so that the wards no longer correspond very closely to their historic extents. Bishopsgate Without gained a significant part of Moorfields from the London Borough of Hackney, while nearly all of Bishopsgate Within was transferred to other wards.
Bishopsgate is also the name of the street, being the part of the originally Roman Ermine Street (now the A10) within the traditional extent of the Ward.
The gate is traditionally held to be named after Earconwald, a 7th-century Bishop of LondonBen Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert (1983). The London Encyclopedia (Bishop of the East Saxons).On the Diocese of London originally serving the East Saxons One of the ward's ancient churches, St Ethelburga-the-Virgin within Bishopsgate, is dedicated to Eorconwald's sister, St Ethelburga of Barking, the first Abbess of Barking Abbey.
In 1471, during the Wars of the Roses, the Yorkist-turned supporter of the House of Lancaster Bastard Fauconberg attacked London, trying to force his way across London Bridge and also attacking the eastern gates with a further five thousand men and artillery. Bishopsgate was set on fireKentish Rising section and the attackers came close to capturing nearby Aldgate and with it the city. The attackers were repulsed from both gates with heavy losses, before being chased back to Bow Bridge and Blackwall.
The Bishop's Gate was rebuilt by the Hanseatic League in 1471 in exchange for steelyard privileges. Its final form was erected in 1735 by the City authorities, but demolished in 1760. This gate often displayed the heads of criminals on spikes. London Wall (which is no longer extant in this sector) divided the ward and road into an intramural portion called Bishopsgate Within and an extramural portion called Bishopsgate Without.
The site of this former gate is marked by a stone bishop's mitre, fixed high upon a building located near Bishopsgate's junction with Wormwood Street, by the gardens there and facing the Heron Tower.
The ward is divided into two parts by the line of the former London Wall and gate which lay just north of Wormwood Street and Camomile Street Streets.
The eastern boundary of Bishopsgate Without is formed by Middlesex Street (better known as Petticoat Lane), with Blomfield Street on the western boundary. Blomfield Street was built on part of the historic course of the former River Walbrook, known at this point as Deepditch. Beyond Deepditch was the Moorfields (in Coleman Street Ward).BHO source on the Moorfields area The Blomfield Street section of the river was the focal point of the Walbrook Skulls; the result of the deposit of large quantities of decapitated Roman-era human skulls into the water.London's Hadrianic War? Dominic Perring These are still often uncovered during building work.
Bishopsgate Without was, from 1247 to 1633, the first home of the Bethlem Royal Hospital (also known as Bedlam). This psychiatric hospital lay immediately north of St Botolph's church.
Around 1597, the merchant Sir Paul Pindar, purchased several existing properties, and built himself a new home on the site (incorporating part of one or more of the old properties). The house had a fairly narrow frontage but extended a long way back. Bishopsgate Street had recently been paved, making the site convenient for Pindar's business activities in East Anglia. The house had views over the open space in nearby Moorfields and
The house was soon prestigious enough to be used as a base by several foreigh ambassadors, including the Venetian ambassador Piero Contarini in 1617–18. London Merchants and their residences gresham.ac.uk
The district was then on the edge of London, something Contarini had mixed feelings about, describing Bishopsgate Without as "…an airy and fashionable area…a little too much
in the country"
In the 1600s, Bishopsgate Without, together with neighbouring Bethnal Green and Spitalfields was home to many Huguenots refugees, many of them weavers.Eppie Evans, The Influence of Foreignness, The Influence of 'Foreignness'
In the late 1600s wealthy residents began to migrate to the newly developed areas of West End of London and the character of the area began to change, Management strategy (). cityoflondon.gov.uk. partly due to the more prosperous parts of the community leaving, and partly to the densification of the area and rapid urbanisation of the neighbouring rural areas.
In time, the East and West Ends of London became more strikingly different in character, writing of the period around 1800, Rev. Richardson commented:
Bishopsgate Without was a very densely populated neighbourhood, prior to the opening (1874) and later expansion (1891) of Liverpool Street station, which now dominates the area. The initial opening of the station saw 3,000 residents of Bishopsgate Without evicted and their homes demolished. Around 7,000 people in neighbouring Shoreditch also lost their homes to the railway tracks feeding into the station.London Encyclopaedia, Weinreb and Hibbert, 1983
Notable buildings include:
Notable buildings include:
The changes made in 2003 and 2013 shifted land between wards of the city. The effect of this was to transfer nearly all of Bishopsgate Within (except for a small area surrounding the Leathersellers' livery hall) to other wards. City of London Corporation Ward boundary review 2010 (final recommendations) – see page 15 The ward previously extended much further south, along the Bishopsgate road and Gracechurch Street. At this time Bishopsgate Without lost a small block of buildings east Blomfield Street to the Broad Street ward.
There were no changes to Bishopsgate's ward boundaries in the 2013 boundary changes.
The revised ward borders the London Borough of Hackney to the north, it neighbours Portsoken and the borough of Tower Hamlets in the east. The other neighbours are Aldgate (southeast), Coleman Street (west), Cornhill (south-west), Broad Street and Lime Street (south).
Although it takes its name from the gate, the road pre-dates the building of the London Wall which was built in the late second or early third centuries. Ermine Street (sometimes called the Old North Road) connected London to Cambridge, Lincoln, York and other towns and cities.
The wards of London appear to have taken shape in the 11th century, before the Norman Conquest. Their administrative, judicial and military purpose made them equivalent to hundreds in the countryside. The primary purpose of wards like Bishopsgate, which included a gate, appears to be the defence of the gate,London 800-1216: The Shaping of a City, Brook and Keir Ch 7 as gates were the weakest points in any fortification.
The earliest origins of the wards reach back further than the 11th century but their emergence and evolution is uncertain and any narrative conjectural. London 800-1216: The Shaping of a City, Brook and Keir. Pages 156-7 refer to William Pages' discussion of the emergence of wards but asserts the statements while valuable are unavoidably conjectural The ward may have developed from the Soke of Bishopsgate, a set of rights, and possibly land, held by the Bishop of London over an area to the east of the River Walbrook. The Bishop may have been granted the land and rights in order to promote growth in the under-developed part of the city east of the River Walbrook. Outside the wall the Walbrook formed the boundary between the Soke of Bishopsgate to the east and the Soke of Cripplegate on the other side of the brook.Statements and conjecture passim from London, its origin and early development, William Page, 1923
Bishopsgate may have originally included the area that subsequently became known as Lime Street Ward. London, its origin and early development, William Page, 1923, p. 176
The Domesday Survey of 1086 did not cover London, but a landholding called Bishopsgate is recorded nearby; this may have been the property later known as Norton Folgate.See section called A HISTORY OF THE MANOR AND LIBERTY OF NORTON FOLGATE
An inn called the Catherine Wheel (demolished 1911) is commemorated by Catherine Wheel Alley which leads off Bishopsgate to the east.Weinreb and Hibbert (1983: 127) The 17th century façade of Sir Paul Pindar's House on Bishopsgate, demolished, with many other old buildings, for the expansion of Liverpool Street railway station in 1890, was also preserved and can now be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In the 18th century this grand residence became a tavern called Sir Paul Pindar's Head;Weinreb and Hibbert 1983: 586 another notable venue was the London Tavern (1768–1876). Also demolished (but then re-erected in Chelsea in 1910) was the old Crosby Hall, at one time the residence of Richard III and Thomas More.
St Ethelburga's was rebuilt, functioning not just as a church but also as home to the St Ethelburga's Centre for Reconciliation and Peace charity.
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