Bishopsgate Street
(Student Project)
Bishopsgate Street ran north from Cornhill Street to the southern end of Shoreditch Street at the city boundary. South of
Cornhill, the road became Gracechurch Street, and the two streets formed a
major north-south artery in the eastern end of the walled city of London, from
London Bridge to Shoreditch. Bishopsgate Street was one
of the original Roman roads in the city of London.
The street is named after Bishopsgate, the gate in
the northern city wall through which it passes. The gate also gave its name to
Bishopsgate Ward.
Just inside the gate on Bishopsgate Street was the
church of St. Ethelburga, which was built in
the middle ages. St. Erkenwald, who, as legend has
it, rebuilt the Roman gate, was her brother (Smith 24). The church in her name on Bishopsgate Street is "the only church in England dedicated to Erkenwald’s sister" (Bebbington 48). Two other churches stood on Bishopsgate, St.
Helen and St. Botolph.
During the Tudor and Elizabethan periods, several wealthy merchants had homes on
Bishopsgate Street. These rich residents
included Sir Thomas Gresham, Sir John Crosby, and Sir Paul Pindar.
Gresham in particular left his mark on the
street and the city in its entirety when he left his house as the location of
Gresham College (Weinreb 67, Stow 1:76).
There were two more buildings of historical and literary importance on Bishopsgate. The first of these is Bethlehem Hospital. Located just outside the city
walls, Bethlehem, commonly corrupted to the short
form -bedlam, was a mental hospital. Bethlehem Hospital is the origin of the nickname
Jack o’ Bedlam or Tom o’ Bedlam, a common literary and dramatic name for a
madman.
The second important site on Bishopsgate Street was
the Bull Inn, where plays were performed "before Shakespeare’s time" (Weinreb
67). The Bull Inn’s early staging of plays is historically significant
because one of the actors, Burbage, "obtained a
licence from Queen Elizabeth to erect a building
specially designed for theatrical performances" (Weinreb 67). This licence would permit the creation
of the Theatre, which was the first playhouse in London, and the one with which
William Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s
Men became associated.
Bishopsgate Street led to Shoreditch Street, where Burbage’s
Theatre stood. Close by was another theatre, the Curtain, which the Lord
Chamberlain’s Men rented when Burbage lost the
lease on the Theatre in 1597. Anyone passing out of the city to see a play
by Shakespeare at the Theatre or the Curtain in the
1590s would have travelled along Bishopsgate
Street.
Bishopsgate Street still exists, and now consists
mostly of Victorian era office blocks (Weinreb and Hibbert 67).
References
- Bebbington, Gillian. London Street Names. London: B.T. Batsford, 1972. Print.
- Smith, Al. Dictionary of City of London Street Names. New York: Arco, 1970. Print.
- Stow, John. A Survey of London. Reprinted from the Text of 1603. Ed. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1908. Print. [Also available as a reprint from Elibron Classics (2001). Articles written before 2011 cite from the print edition by volume and page number.]
- Weinreb, Ben, and Christopher Hibbert, eds. The London Encyclopaedia. New York: St. Martin’s, 1983. Print. [You may also wish to consult the 3rd edition of The London Encyclopedia (2008). Print.]
This project is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
