Bishopsgate

See Bishopsgate Insurance for the Australian insurance company bankrupted in 1982.

Bishopsgate is a road and ward in the east part of the City of London, extending north from Gracechurch Street to Norton Folgate. It is named after one of the original seven gates in London Wall. The site of this gate is marked by a stone Bishop's Mitre, fixed high on a building, at the junction of Wormwood Street and Camomile Street with Bishopsgate. The ward is bounded by Worship Street in the north, where the edge of the City meets the London Boroughs of Islington and Hackney and London Wall to the south. It neighbours Portsoken ward and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the east. The western boundary is formed by Old Broad Street, where the ward meets Broad Street ward. Over 46,000 people work in the ward, but it has a resident population of only 48.

History

Originally Roman, the Bishop's Gate was rebuilt by the Hansa merchants in 1471 in exchange for the steelyard privileges. Its final form was erected in 1735 by the City authorities and 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 Bishopsgate thoroughfare forms part of the A10 and the section to north of the site of the original Gate is the start of Roman Ermine Street, also known as the 'Old North Road'.

The parish church for the area of Bishopsgate Without is Saint Botolph's. This is situated just to the north of the original Gate on the west side of the road.

Bishopsgate Within was originally divided into many parishs each with its own parish church: St Andrew Undershaft, St Ethelburga Bishopsgate, St Martin Outwich, St Mary Axe and St Helen's Bishopsgate, now all amalgamated under the jurisdiction of the latter. St Helen's is a very historic medieval church and former monastic establishment with many ancient funerary monuments and a stained glass window depicting Shakespeare - commemorating a very famous former parishioner who lived in the area in the early to mid 1590s (Wood 2003: 124).

Bishopsgate was originally the location of many coaching inns which accommodated passengers setting out on the Old North Road. These, though they survived the Great Fire of London, have now all been demolished, though the modern White Hart pub, to the north of St Botolph's, is the successor of an inn of the same name. Others included the Dolphin, the Flower Pot, the Green Dragon, the Wrestlers, the Angel and the Black Bull. This latter was a venue for the Queen's Men theatrical troupe in the 16th century (Wood 2003: 124-8). The name of 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 facade of Sir Paul Pindar's House, demolished to make may for Liverpool Street Station in 1890, on Bishopsgate 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). Also demolished (but then re-erected in Chelsea) was the old Crosby Hall, at one time the residence of Richard III of England and Thomas More. Bishopsgate is the site of Liverpool Street station, the notable public house Dirty Dick's, the Bishopsgate Institute, and many offices.

On 24 April 1993 it was the site of the Bishopsgate bombing, a Provisional Irish Republican Army truck bombing, which killed journalist Ed Henty, injured over 40 people and caused £1 billion worth of damage, including the destruction of St Ethelburga's church, and serious damage to Liverpool St. Tube Station. Police had received a coded warning, but were still evacuating the area at the time of the explosion. The insurance payments required were so enormous, that Lloyd's of London almost went bankrupt under the strain, and there was a crisis in the London insurance market. The area had already suffered damage from the Baltic Exchange bombing the year before.

The street is home to the main London offices of several major banks including the Royal Bank of Scotland, ABN AMRO and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

In June 2005, plans were unveiled for the Bishopsgate Tower, a huge skyscraper to be built at the northern end of the road.