Moorgate | |
---|---|
Location within Greater London | |
OS grid reference | TQ327811 |
Sui generis | |
Administrative area | Greater London |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | LONDON |
Postcode district | EC2 |
Dialling code | 020 |
Police | City of London |
Fire | London |
Ambulance | London |
UK Parliament | |
London Assembly | |
Moorgate was one of the City of London, England's northern gates in its defensive wall, the last to be built. The gate took its name from the Moorfields, an area of marshy land that lay immediately north of the wall.
The gate was demolished in 1762, but gave its name to a major street, Moorgate, laid out in 1834. The area around the street and around Moorgate station is informally also referred to as Moorgate. The Moorgate district is home to many financial institutions and has many notable historic and contemporary buildings.
Moorgate station was the site of the Moorgate tube crash of 1975, when a Northern City Line train failed to stop and hit a brick wall killing 43. This resulted in systems, known as Moorgate control, being installed on the Underground in order to stop trains at dead-ends.
The earliest descriptions of Moorgate date from the early 15th century, where it was described as only a postern in the London city wall. Located between Bishopsgate and Cripplegate and leading to a marshy open space known as Moorfields, it was not one of the larger or more important of the city gates.
In 1415 an ordinance enacted that the old postern be demolished. It was replaced with a newer and larger structure located farther to the west, which included a wooden gate to be shut at night. This gate was enlarged again in 1472 and 1511, and then damaged in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Although the City gates had ceased to have any modern function apart from decoration, it was replaced along with Ludgate, Newgate, and Temple Bar with a stone gate in 1672.
Moorgate and the Wall originally formed the northern boundary of Coleman Street Ward. It appears that the area outside, the once very marshy Lower and Little Moorfields (now mostly occupied by Finsbury Circus and the surrounding buildings), previously part of the Manor of Finsbury were added in the 17th century, [lower-alpha 1] though it was not developed until 1817.
Moorgate was demolished with most of the other London city wall gates in 1761/2, and the resulting stone was sold for £166 to the City of London Corporation to support the starlings of the newly widened centre arch of the London Bridge.
Little Moorgate was a postern opposite Little Winchester Street leading into Moorfields. It had been demolished by 1755, but gave its name to a street [1] that was later removed for the building of a railway.
The area around the former gate, Moorgate Street and Moorgate station is referred to informally as the Moorgate area. This locale roughly approximates to the Coleman Street Ward of the City of London.
The contemporary street of Moorgate runs north from Princes Street and Lothbury at the back of the Bank of England, across the road named London Wall and the location of the old gate, and then continues north. After leaving the City of London in the direction of the London Borough of Islington, the street is known as Finsbury Pavement (which at one time was known as Moor Fields Pavement) and then City Road. The street was constructed around 1846 as one of the new approaches to London Bridge. While the street was formally known as "Moorgate Street", the street part of the name eventually fell out of use.
The Chartered Accountants' Hall, on Moorgate Place, is the home of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.
The Guildhall is connected to Moorgate station via Bassishaw Highwalk. The Guildhall is the home of the City of London Corporation and the centre of City government since the Middle Ages. Adjacent and internally connected to the Guildhall is the Guildhall Art Gallery, which houses the art collection of the City of London. It occupies a stone building in a semi-Gothic style which was completed in 1999 to replace an earlier building destroyed in 1941.
The Moorfields were an extensive area of open land, partly in the City of London, partly in the Manor of Finsbury. The Lower Moorfields was home to the Bethlem Royal Hospital (also known as Bedlam, Europe's oldest psychiatric hospital) from 1676 to 1815.
The Lower Moorfields was developed in 1817, with the building of Finsbury Circus. Finsbury Circus includes a number of classical buildings surrounding an oval-shaped circus. The gardens in the centre of the circus occupy a 5,000-square-metre (1.2-acre) plot enclosed by railings, and include the lawn of the City of London Bowls Club.
Moorgate is also the birthplace of John Keats, one of the principal poets in the English Romantic movement. Keats was born in 1795 in the Swan and Hoop Inn at 199 Moorgate, where his father was an ostler. The pub is now called "The John Keats at The Globe", having previously been known as "The Moorgate Coffee House", "The Moorgate" and "The John Keats at Moorgate", only a few yards from Moorgate station.
A new commercial development on Moorgate, known as Moor House, opened in 2005. The building is located at the corner of Moorgate and London Wall, and was designed by Foster and Partners. The building has 28,000 m2 (300,000 sq ft) of office space in 19 storeys, and is built in the location of a smaller office building built in the 1960s known as Moor House. A 36 m shaft under the building incorporates part of Crossrail's new station and ticket hall serving Liverpool Street.
During the 1940s-60s, HM Customs and Excise investigation staff were based at Moorgate Hall, 153 Moorgate.
There is a campus of the London Metropolitan University, formerly a polytechnic, and part of the London Guildhall University, on Moorgate. The campus houses its business school, a library, and other administrative facilities.
A number of large buildings are being planned or already built in the neighbouring streets. These include a 43-storey, 140 m residential skyscraper at Milton Court (The Heron), that is taller than CityPoint, and a 90 m office tower at Ropemaker Place is also being developed by British Land, with construction already underway.
Moorgate is served by the following bus routes: 21, 43 (24 hour), 76 (24 hour), 100, 141, 153, 214 (24 hour), 271 (24 hour) and Night Bus route N551 (Towards Gallions Reach on a temporary diversion)
The London Borough of Islington is a London borough which forms part of Inner London, England. Islington has an estimated population of 215,667. It was formed in 1965, under the London Government Act 1963, by the amalgamation of the metropolitan boroughs of Islington and Finsbury.
Finsbury is a district of Central London, forming the southeastern part of the London Borough of Islington. It borders the City of London.
Finsbury Park is an intermodal interchange station in North London for London Underground, National Rail and London Buses services. The station is the third busiest Underground station outside Zone 1, with over 33 million passengers using the station in 2019.
City Road or The City Road is a road that runs through central London. The northwestern extremity of the road is at Angel where it forms a continuation of Pentonville Road. Pentonville Road itself is the modern name for the eastern part of London's first bypass, the New Road from Paddington to Islington, which was constructed in 1756. The City Road was built in 1761 as a continuation of that route to the City of London.
Moorgate is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station on Moorgate in the City of London. Main line railway services for Hertford, Welwyn Garden City and Stevenage are operated by Great Northern, while the Underground station is served by the Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan and Northern lines.
Old Street is an interchange station at the junction of Old Street and City Road in Central London for London Underground and National Rail services.
Bishopsgate was one of the eastern gates in London's former defensive 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 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.
The London Wall is a defensive wall first built by the Romans around the strategically important port town of Londinium in c. AD 200, as well as the name of a modern street in the City of London, England.
Moorfields was an open space, partly in the City of London, lying adjacent to – and outside – its northern wall, near the eponymous Moorgate. It was known for its marshy conditions, the result of the defensive wall acting as a dam, impeding the flow of the River Walbrook and its tributaries.
Citypoint is a building located on Ropemaker Street on the northern fringe of the City of London, the main financial district and historic nucleus of London.
Essex Road is a National Rail station in Canonbury in Greater London, England, and is on the Northern City Line between Old Street and Highbury & Islington, 1 mile 59 chains (2.8 km) down the line from Moorgate, and is in Travelcard Zone 2. The station is at the junction of Essex Road, Canonbury Road and New North Road, with the present entrance on Canonbury Road. Operated by Great Northern, it is the only deep-level underground station in London served exclusively by National Rail trains. Between 1933 and 1975 the station was operated as part of the London Underground, as a short branch of the Northern line. Between 1922 and 1948 the station name was Canonbury & Essex Road. The name reverted to the original form in 1948.
George Dance the Younger RA was an English architect and surveyor as well as a portraitist.
Finsbury Pavement is a short length of street in England connecting Moorgate with City Road in the London Borough of Islington. It forms a part of the London Inner Ring Road, and before the introduction of the ring of steel around the City of London it formed a major through-route towards London Bridge and south London.
A postern is a secondary door or gate in a fortification such as a city wall or castle curtain wall. Posterns were often located in a concealed location which allowed the occupants to come and go inconspicuously. In the event of a siege, a postern could act as a sally port, allowing defenders to make a sortie on the besiegers. Placed in a less exposed, less visible location, they were usually relatively small, and therefore easily defensible.
A tenterground, tenter ground or teneter-field was an area used for drying newly manufactured cloth after fulling. The wet cloth was hooked onto frames called "tenters" and stretched taut using "tenter hooks", so that the cloth would dry flat and square.
St Mary Moorfields is a Roman Catholic church in Eldon Street near Moorgate, on a site previously known as Moorfields. It is the only Catholic church in the City of London. Prior to a 1994 boundary change, the church was in the Borough of Hackney, such that there were no Catholic churches in the City.
Finsbury Circus is a park in the Coleman Street Ward of the City of London, England. The 2 acre park is the largest public open space within the City's boundaries.
Coleman Street is one of the 25 ancient wards of the City of London, England, and lies on the City's northern boundary with the London Borough of Islington.
Finsbury Square is a 0.7-hectare (1.7-acre) square in Finsbury in central London which includes a six-rink grass bowling green. It was developed in 1777 on the site of a previous area of green space to the north of the City of London known as Finsbury Fields, in the parish of St Luke's and near Moorfields. It is sited on the east side of City Road, opposite the east side of Bunhill Fields. It is approximately 200m north of Moorgate station, 300m north-west of Liverpool Street station and 400m south of Old Street station. Nearby locations are Finsbury Circus and Finsbury Pavement. Named after it, but several miles away, are Finsbury Park and its eponymous neighbourhood. The centre of the square includes a underground NCP Car Park and two disused petrol stations, also owned by NCP for above-ground commercial parking. Finsbury Square is served by bus routes 21, 43, 141 and 214.
Blomfield Street is a road in the City of London, close to Liverpool Street railway station. It was known as Broker Row, until 1860.