Eastcheap, EC3R

Eastcheap takes its name from cheap, the Old English word for market. There was a Westcheap – another former market street – that today is called Cheapside.

The Eastcheap name first appeared on an Anglo-Saxon penny of King Harold I’s reign. The penny was minted in London between 1035 and 1037 and the mint signature on the coin reads EADǷOLD ONESTCEPLV (’Eadwold on East Cheap’). This is the earliest known instance of a street-name on Anglo-Saxon coinage.

During the medieval period, Eastcheap was the main meat market in the City of London, with butchers’ stalls lining both sides of the street. The current section of the street was known as Little Eastcheap.

The street formerly extended further to the west, where it was called Great Eastcheap, but this section disappeared when King William Street was built in the early 19th century. Eastcheap was the location of Falstaff’s Boar’s Head Inn, featured in William Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 but was demolished for the King William Street construction.

On the side of 23 Eastcheap is one of London’s smallest statues – two mice fighting over a piece of cheese. The statue is thought to date from 1862 and was possibly made for the spice merchants Hunt and Crombie by John Young & Son thought the reason for its construction is not definitively known.




Leave a Reply