Bishopsgate was originally the entry point for travellers coming from the north east into London.
Bishopsgate runs north from Gracechurch Street to Norton Folgate. The gate in the city wall was called ‘Porta Episcopi’ in Domesday Book, and this was anglicised as Bishopsgate by the 12th century. It is said that the name refers to Saint Erkenwald, who was Bishop of London for eleven years in the late seventh century.
Houses began to appear on both sides of the gate in the 13th century and by the 16th century the whole road was lined with buildings, including the merchants’ residences of Crosby Place and Gresham House and the churches of St Botolph, St Helen and St Ethelburga.
Like many of the gates in the City wall, Bishopsgate was demolished in 1761. Continuous rebuilding has left nothing of the medieval street except for the core fabric of the surviving churches.
