Bishopsgate

In the Roman period it was illegal to bury the dead within the city, so cemeteries were established outside the city gates. There were large burial grounds outside Bishopsgate, on both side of Ermine Street. The wards of London appear to have taken shape in the 11th century, before the Norman Conquest. Their administrative, judicial and military purpose made them equivalent to hundreds in the countryside. The primary purpose of wards like Bishopsgate, which included a gate, appears to be the defence of the gate, as gates were the weakest points in any fortification. The earliest origins of the wards reach back further than the 11th century but their emergence and evolution is uncertain and…

The gate was first built in the Roman era, probably at the time the wall was first built. The road though the gate, Ermine Street (known at this point as Bishopsgate) was in place long before the wall and the gate. The gate is traditionally held to be named after Earconwald, a 7th-century Bishop of London (Bishop of the East Saxons). One of the ward's ancient churches, St Ethelburga-the-Virgin within Bishopsgate, is dedicated to Eorconwald's sister, St Ethelburga of Barking, the first Abbess of Barking Abbey. In 1471, during the Wars of the Roses, the Yorkist-turned supporter of the House of Lancaster Bastard Fauconberg attacked London, trying to force his way across London Bridge and also…