page_title: Bishopsgate
section_title: Early History
hierarchical_section_title: Bishopsgate / The Ward / History / Early History
context_page_description: Bishopsgate was one of the eastern gates in London’s former defensive wall. The gate gave its name to the Bishopsgate Ward of the City of London. The ward is traditionally divided into Bishopsgate Within, inside the line wall, and Bishopsgate Without beyond it. Bishopsgate Without is described as part of London's East End.
  The ancient boundaries of the City Wards were reviewed in 1994 and 2013, so that the Wards no longer correspond very closely to their historic extents. Bishopsgate Without gained a significant part of Shoreditch from the London Borough of Hackney, while nearly all of Bishopsgate Within was transferred to other Wards.
  Bishopsgate is also the name of part of the originally Roman Ermine Street within the traditional extent of the Ward.
context_section_description: 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 any narrative conjectural. The Ward may have developed from the Soke of Bishopsgate, a set of rights, and possibly land, held by the Bishop of London over an area to the east of the River Walbrook. The Bishop may have been granted the land and rights in order to promote growth in the under-developed part of the city east of the Walbrook. Outside the Wall the Walbrook formed the boundary between the Soke of Bishopsgate to the east and the Soke of Cripplegate on the other side of the brook.
  Bishopsgate may have originally included the area that subsequently became known as Lime Street Ward.
  The Domesday Survey of 1086 didn’t cover London, but a landholding called Bishopsgate is recorded nearby, this may have been the property later known as Norton Folgate.
caption: Bishopsgate-Street Ward in 1720.
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