Jump to content

Moorgate

Coordinates:51°31′03″N0°05′19″W/ 51.5174°N 0.0887°W/51.5174; -0.0887
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the street and area in central London. For the rail and tube station, seeMoorgate station.For the village in Norfolk, seeMoorgate, Norfolk.

Moorgate
Moorgate is located in Greater London
Moorgate
Moorgate
Location withinGreater London
OS grid referenceTQ327811
Sui generis
Administrative areaGreater London
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townLONDON
Postcode districtEC2
Dialling code020
PoliceCity of London
FireLondon
AmbulanceLondon
UK Parliament
London Assembly
List of places
UK
England
London
51°31′03″N0°05′19″W/ 51.5174°N 0.0887°W/51.5174; -0.0887

Moorgatewas one of theCity of London,England's northern gates in itsdefensive wall,the last to be built. The gate took its name from theMoorfields,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 aroundMoorgate stationis informally also referred to asMoorgate.The Moorgate district is home to many financial institutions and has many notable historic and contemporary buildings.

Moorgate station was the site of theMoorgate tube crashof 1975, when aNorthern City Linetrain failed to stop and hit a brick wall killing 43. This resulted in systems, known asMoorgate control,being installed on the Underground in order to stop trains at dead-ends.

The gate

[edit]
The Moorgate, 1650
An engraving showing Moorgate before it was demolished in 1762

The earliest descriptions of Moorgate date from the early 15th century, where it was described as only aposternin theLondon city wall.Located betweenBishopsgateandCripplegateand leading to a marshy open space known asMoorfields,it was not one of the larger or more important of the city gates.

In 1415 anordinanceenacted that the old postern be demolished. It was replaced with a newer and larger structure located farther to the west, which included a woodengateto be shut at night. This gate was enlarged again in 1472 and 1511, and then damaged in theGreat Fire of Londonin 1666. Although the City gates had ceased to have any modern function apart from decoration, it was replaced along withLudgate,Newgate,andTemple Barwith a stone gate in 1672.

The Moorgate linked the parts of Coleman Street Ward on either side of London's Wall

Moorgate and the Wall originally formed the northern boundary ofColeman Street Ward.It appears that the area outside, the once very marshyLower and Little Moorfields(now mostly occupied byFinsbury Circusand the surrounding buildings), previously part of theManor of Finsburywere added in the 17th century,[a]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 theCity of London Corporationto support thestarlingsof the newly widened centre arch of theLondon Bridge.

Little Moorgate was a postern oppositeLittle Winchester Streetleading intoMoorfields.It had been demolished by 1755, but gave its name to a street[1]that was later removed for the building of a railway.

Moorgate Street and locality

[edit]
Moor House
CityPoint

The area around the former gate, Moorgate Street and Moorgate station is referred to informally as theMoorgatearea. This locale roughly approximates to theColeman Street Wardof theCity of London.

The contemporary street of Moorgate runs north from Princes Street andLothburyat the back of theBank of England,across the road named London Wall and the location of the old gate, and then continues north. After leaving theCity of Londonin the direction of theLondon Borough of Islington,the street is known asFinsbury 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 toLondon Bridge.While the street was formally known as "Moorgate Street", the street part of the name eventually fell out of use.

TheChartered Accountants' Hall,on Moorgate Place, is the home of theInstitute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

TheGuildhallis connected toMoorgate stationvia Bassishaw Highwalk. The Guildhall is the home of theCity of London Corporationand the centre of City government since theMiddle Ages.Adjacent and internally connected to the Guildhall is theGuildhall Art Gallery,which houses the art collection of the City of London. It occupies a stone building in a semi-Gothicstyle which was completed in 1999 to replace an earlier building destroyed in 1941.

TheMoorfieldswere an extensive area of open land, partly in the City of London, partly in theManor of Finsbury.The Lower Moorfields was home to theBethlem Royal Hospital(also known as Bedlam, Europe's oldestpsychiatric hospital) from 1676 to 1815.

Rocque e1 MoorgateCrop

The Lower Moorfields was developed in 1817, with the building ofFinsbury Circus.Finsbury Circus includes a number of classical buildings surrounding an oval-shapedcircus.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 ofJohn Keats,one of the principalpoetsin theEnglishRomanticmovement. Keats was born in 1795 in the Swan and Hoop Inn at 199 Moorgate, where his father was anostler.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 asMoor House,opened in 2005. The building is located at the corner of Moorgate and London Wall, and was designed byFoster 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 ofCrossrail'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 theLondon Metropolitan University,formerly a polytechnic, and part of theLondon Guildhall University,on Moorgate. The campus houses its business school, alibrary,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 thanCityPoint,and a 90 m office tower at Ropemaker Place is also being developed byBritish Land,with construction already underway.

Nearest places

[edit]

Nearby rail and Tube

[edit]
National Rail
London Underground

Bus routes

[edit]

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 (TowardsGallions Reachon a temporary diversion)

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^The Ward did not extend beyond the wall at the time of John Stows survey of 1603 – but it did by the time of Ogilby and Morgans map of 1676

References

[edit]
  1. ^Boyle, P.Boyle's View of London, and its Environs;1799. London, accessed at[1]2008-04-12
Books and articles
  • Lange, D.The Queen's London: A Pictorial and Descriptive Record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks and Scenery of the Great Metropolis.Cassell and Company, London, 1896.
  • Harris, C. M.What's in a name? The origins of the names of all stations in current use on the London Underground and Docklands Light rail with their opening dates.Midas Books andLondon Transport,fourth edition, 2001.ISBN1-85414-241-0.
  • Mills, A. D.Dictionary of London Place Names.Oxford University Press,2004.ISBN0-19-860957-4.
  • Rocque, J.Rocque's Map of London.1746 and 1763.
  • Harben, H. A.A Dictionary of London.1918.
  • Stow, J.Survey of London.1720 and 1755. 2 volumes.
  • Colvin, Sidney.John Keats - Biography.1887.
  • Motion, A.Keats.University of ChicagoPress, 1998.ISBN0-374-18100-4.
  • Holloway, S.Moorgate: Anatomy of a Railway Disaster.Trafalgar Square Publishing, 1989.ISBN0-7153-8913-0.
  • Bacon, J. M.The Dominion of the Air,Chapter 3.Online extract.
Other web sites
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related toMoorgate.
Major buildings
Vincenzo Lunardi
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moorgate&oldid=1242409232"