Aldgate was a gateway through London Wall from the City of London to Whitechapel and the East End.
St. Botolph’s without Aldgate
, located on Aldgate
High Street, has existed for over a thousand years.
The church was one of four in medieval London dedicated to St Botolph, a 7th-century East Anglian saint, each of which stood by one of the gates of the London Wall
. The others erected were St Botolph’s, Billingsgate (destroyed by the Great Fire and not rebuilt); St Botolph’s, Aldersgate; and St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate
The earliest known written record of the church dates from 1115, when it was received by the Holy Trinity Priory (recently founded by Matilda, wife of Henry I) but the parochial foundations may very well date from before 1066. Its first recorded Rector was in 1108, predating the first recorded instance of the church.
The original Saxon building was enlarged in 1418 and almost entirely rebuilt in the sixteenth century. The church also houses monuments to figures who lived during the Middle Ages, such as Thomas, Lord Dacre, and Sir Nicholas Carrew of Beddington.
The current 18th-century church building is made of brick with stone quoins and window casings. The tower is square with an obelisk spire.
St Botolph’s was often referred to as the "Church of Prostitutes" in the late Victorian period. The church is sited on an island surrounded by roadways and it was usual in these times to be suspicious of women standing on street corners. They were easy targets for the police, and to escape arrest the prostitutes would parade around the island, now occupied by the church and Aldgate
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Front elevation of St. Botolph’s church
It is thought that a gate at Aldgate
was already spanning the road to Colchester in the Roman period, when the City wall itself was constructed. The gateway stood at the corner of the modern Duke's Place and was always an obstacle to traffic. It was rebuilt between 1108–47, again in 1215, and reconstructed completely between 1607-09. The gate was finally removed in 1761; it was temporarily re-erected at Bethnal Green.
While he was a customs official, from 1374 until 1386, Geoffrey Chaucer occupied apartments above the gate. The Augustinians priory of Holy Trinity Aldgate
was founded by Matilda, the wife of King Henry I, in 1108, on ground just inside the gate.
ward, Jews settled from 1181, until their expulsion in 1290 by King Edward I. The area became known as Old Jewry
. Jews were welcomed back by Oliver Cromwell, and once again they settled in the area, founding London's oldest synagogue at Bevis Marks
's junction with Leadenhall Street
and Fenchurch Street
is the site of the old Aldgate
Pump. From 1700 it was from this point that distances were measured into the counties of Essex and Middlesex. The original pump was taken down in 1876, and a 'faux' pump and drinking fountain was erected several yards to the west of the original; it was supplied by water from the New River. In ancient deeds, Alegate Well is mentioned, adjoining the City wall, and this may have been the source (of water) for the original pump. A section of the remains of Holy Trinity Priory can be seen through a window in a nearby office block, on the north side.
The area around the large traffic roundabout to the east of where the gate stood is also often referred to as Aldgate
(although strictly, this is Aldgate
High Street, and extends a short distance into Whitechapel
; it is also known occasionally by the epithet 'Gardiners' Corner', in honour of a long-disappeared department store).
underground station was opened on 18 November 1876 with the southbound extension to Tower Hill
opening on 25 September 1882, completing the (Inner) Circle. Services from Aldgate
originally ran far further west than they do now, reaching as far as Richmond, and trains also used to run from Aldgate
to Hammersmith (the Hammersmith & City line now bypasses the station). It became the terminus of the Metropolitan line only in 1941. Before that, Metropolitan trains had continued on to the southern termini of the East London Line.
Platforms 1 and 4 at Aldgate
are the only two platforms on the network to be served exclusively by the Circle line.