Moorgate was one of the

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

's northern gates in its

defensive wall A defensive wall is a fortification usually used to protect a city, town or other settlement from potential aggressors. The walls can range from simple palisades or earthworks to extensive military fortifications such as curtain walls with t ...

, the last to be built. The gate took its name from the

Moorfields Moorfields was an open space, partly in the City of London, lying adjacent to – and outside – its London Wall, northern wall, near the eponymous Moorgate. It was known for its marshy conditions, the result of the defensive wall acting a ...

, an area of marshy land that lay immediately north of the wall. The gate was demolished in 1762, but gave its name to a major street, ''Moorgate'', laid out in 1834. The area around the street and around

Moorgate station Moorgate () is a London station group, central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station on Moorgate in the City of London. Main line railway services for Hertford North railway station, Hertford, Welwyn Garden City rai ...

is informally also referred to as ''Moorgate''. The Moorgate district is home to many financial institutions and has many notable historic and contemporary buildings. Moorgate station was the site of the

Moorgate tube crash The Moorgate tube crash occurred on 28 February 1975 at 8:46 am on the London Underground's Northern City Line; 43 people died and 74 were injured after a train failed to stop at the line's southern terminus, Moorgate station, and crashed ...

of 1975, when a Northern City Line train failed to stop and hit a brick wall killing 43. This resulted in systems, known as Moorgate control, being installed on the Underground in order to stop trains at dead-ends.

The gate

The earliest descriptions of Moorgate date from the early 15th century, where it was described as only a postern in the London city wall. Located between

Bishopsgate Bishopsgate was one of the eastern gates in London's former defensive wall. The gate's name is traditionally attributed to Earconwald, who was Bishop of London in the 7th century. It was first built in Roman times and marked the beginning o ...

and

Cripplegate Cripplegate was a city gate, gate in the London Wall which once enclosed the City of London, England. The Cripplegate gate lent its name to the Cripplegate Wards of the City of London, ward of the City, which encompasses the area where the gat ...

and leading to a marshy open space known as

, it was not one of the larger or more important of the city gates. In 1415 an ordinance enacted that the old postern be demolished. It was replaced with a newer and larger structure located farther to the west, which included a wooden

gate A gate or gateway is a point of entry to or from a space enclosed by walls. The word is derived from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic ''*gatan'', meaning an opening or passageway. Synonyms include yett (which comes from the same root w ...

to be shut at night. This gate was enlarged again in 1472 and 1511, and then damaged in the

Great Fire of London The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Wednesday 5 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old London Wall, Roman city wall, while also extendi ...

in 1666. Although the City gates had ceased to have any modern function apart from decoration, it was replaced along with Ludgate, Newgate, and Temple Bar with a stone gate in 1672. Moorgate and the Wall originally formed the northern boundary of Coleman Street Ward. It appears that the area outside, the once very marshy Lower and Little Moorfields (now mostly occupied by

Finsbury Circus Finsbury Circus is a park in the Coleman Street Ward of the City of London, England. The 2 acre park is the largest public open space within the City's boundaries. It is not to be confused with Finsbury Square, just north of the City, or Fins ...

and the surrounding buildings), previously part of the Manor of Finsbury were added in the 17th century, though it was not developed until 1817. Moorgate was demolished with most of the other London city wall gates in 1761/2, and the resulting stone was sold for £166 to the

City of London Corporation The City of London Corporation, officially and legally the Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London, is the local authority of the City of London, the historic centre of London and the location of much of the United Kingdom's f ...

to support the starlings of the newly widened centre arch of the

London Bridge The name "London Bridge" refers to several historic crossings that have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark in central London since Roman Britain, Roman times. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 197 ...

. Little Moorgate was a postern opposite Little Winchester Street leading into

. It had been demolished by 1755, but gave its name to a street Boyle, P. ''Boyle's View of London, and its Environs''; 1799. London, accessed a

2008-04-12 that was later removed for the building of a railway.

Moorgate Street and locality

The area around the former gate, Moorgate Street and Moorgate station is referred to informally as the ''Moorgate'' area. This locale roughly approximates to the Coleman Street Ward of the

. The contemporary street of Moorgate runs north from Princes Street and Lothbury at the back of the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the Kingdom of England, English Government's banker and debt manager, and still one ...

, across the road named London Wall and the location of the old gate, and then continues north. After leaving the

in the direction of the

London Borough of Islington The London Borough of Islington ( ) is a London borough, borough in North London, England. Forming part of Inner London, Islington has an estimated population of 215,667. It was formed in 1965, under the London Government Act 1963, by the amalg ...

, the street is known as Finsbury Pavement (which at one time was known as Moor Fields Pavement) and then City Road. The street was constructed around 1846 as one of the new approaches to

. While the street was formally known as "Moorgate Street", the street part of the name eventually fell out of use. The Chartered Accountants' Hall, on Moorgate Place, is the home of the

Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) is a professional membership organisation that promotes, develops and supports chartered accountants and students around the world. As of December 2024, it has over 210,000 memb ...

. The

Guildhall A guildhall, also known as a guild hall or guild house, is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Europe, with many surviving today in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commo ...

is connected to

via Bassishaw Highwalk. The Guildhall is the home of the

and the centre of City government since the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

. Adjacent and internally connected to the Guildhall is the

Guildhall Art Gallery The Guildhall Art Gallery houses the art collection of the City of London, England. The museum is located in the Moorgate area of the City of London. It is a stone building in a semi-Gothic style intended to be sympathetic to the historic Guil ...

, which houses the art collection of the City of London. It occupies a stone building in a semi- Gothic style which was completed in 1999 to replace an earlier building destroyed in 1941. The

were an extensive area of open land, partly in the City of London, partly in the Manor of Finsbury. The Lower Moorfields was home to the

Bethlem Royal Hospital Bethlem Royal Hospital, also known as St Mary Bethlehem, Bethlehem Hospital and Bedlam, is a psychiatric hospital in Bromley, London. Its famous history has inspired several horror books, films, and television series, most notably ''Bedlam (194 ...

(also known as Bedlam, Europe's oldest

psychiatric hospital A psychiatric hospital, also known as a mental health hospital, a behavioral health hospital, or an asylum is a specialized medical facility that focuses on the treatment of severe Mental disorder, mental disorders. These institutions cater t ...

) from 1676 to 1815. Rocque e1 MoorgateCrop

The Lower Moorfields was developed in 1817, with the building of

. Finsbury Circus includes a number of classical buildings surrounding an oval-shaped

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicy ...

. The gardens in the centre of the circus occupy a plot enclosed by railings, and include the lawn of the City of London Bowls Club. Moorgate is also the birthplace of

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...

, one of the principal

poets A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

in the English Romantic movement. Keats was born in 1795 in the Swan and Hoop Inn at 199 Moorgate, where his father was an ostler. The pub is now called "The John Keats at The Globe", having previously been known as "The Moorgate Coffee House", "The Moorgate" and "The John Keats at Moorgate", only a few yards from Moorgate station. A new commercial development on Moorgate, known as Moor House, opened in 2005. The building is located at the corner of Moorgate and London Wall, and was designed by Foster and Partners. The building has of office space in 19 storeys, and is built in the location of a smaller office building built in the 1960s known as Moor House. A 36 m shaft under the building incorporates part of

Crossrail Crossrail is a completed railway project centred on London. It provides a high-frequency hybrid commuter rail and rapid transit system, akin to the Réseau Express Régional, RER in Paris and the S-Bahn systems of German-speaking countries, kn ...

's new station and ticket hall serving Liverpool Street. During the 1940s-60s, HM Customs and Excise investigation staff were based at Moorgate Hall, 153 Moorgate. There is a campus of the

London Metropolitan University London Metropolitan University, commonly known as London Met, is a public university, public research university in London, England. The University of North London and London Guildhall University merged in 2002 to create the university. The Un ...

, formerly a polytechnic, and part of the

London Guildhall University London Guildhall University was a university in the United Kingdom from 1992 to 2002, established when the City of London Polytechnic was awarded university status. On 1 August 2002, it merged with the University of North London to form Londo ...

, on Moorgate. The campus houses its business school, a

library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

, and other administrative facilities. A number of large buildings are being planned or already built in the neighbouring streets. These include a 43-storey, 140 m residential skyscraper at Milton Court ( The Heron), that is taller than CityPoint, and a 90 m office tower at Ropemaker Place is also being developed by British Land, with construction already underway.

Nearest places

Barbican Estate The Barbican Estate, or Barbican, is a residential complex of around 2,000 flats, Apartment#Maisonette, maisonettes and houses in central London, England, within the City of London. It is in an area once devastated by World War II bombings an ...

Nearby rail and Tube

;

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, a group representing passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the passenger services previously provided by ...

Liverpool Street station Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a major central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It i ...

;

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or as the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent home counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The Undergro ...

*Moorgate station:

Northern line The Northern line is a London Underground line that runs between North London and South London. It is printed in black on the Tube map. It carries more passengers per year than any other Underground linearound 340million in 2019making it the bu ...

(city branch),

Circle A circle is a shape consisting of all point (geometry), points in a plane (mathematics), plane that are at a given distance from a given point, the Centre (geometry), centre. The distance between any point of the circle and the centre is cal ...

, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines

Bus routes

Moorgate is served by the following bus routes: 21, 43 (24 hour), 76 (24 hour), 100, 141, 153, 214 (24 hour), 271 (24 hour) and Night Bus route N551 (Towards Gallions Reach on a temporary diversion)

Notes

References

;Books and articles * Lange, D. ''The Queen's London: A Pictorial and Descriptive Record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks and Scenery of the Great Metropolis''. Cassell and Company, London, 1896. * Harris, C. M. ''What's in a name? The origins of the names of all stations in current use on the London Underground and Docklands Light rail with their opening dates.'' Midas Books and London Transport, fourth edition, 2001. . * Mills, A. D. ''Dictionary of London Place Names''.

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2004. . * Rocque, J. ''Rocque's Map of London''. 1746 and 1763. * Harben, H. A. ''A Dictionary of London''. 1918. * Stow, J. ''Survey of London''. 1720 and 1755. 2 volumes. * Colvin, Sidney. ''John Keats - Biography''. 1887. * Motion, A. ''Keats''.

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

Press, 1998. . * Holloway, S. ''Moorgate: Anatomy of a Railway Disaster''. Trafalgar Square Publishing, 1989. . * Bacon, J. M. ''The Dominion of the Air'', Chapter 3
Online extract
;Other web sites
Metronet history of the Circle Line
Retrieved 31 March 2005.
Metronet history of the Hammersmith and City Line
Retrieved 31 March 2005.

External links

BBC News account of the 1975 crash

Moorgate station
Official homepage of the station from Metronet
John Rocque's Map of London - 1746

Streetmap.co.uk
. The map is centred on the Moorgate campus of

BBC nature walks - Roman London and a geological walk of the world

Moors Gate
;Major buildings * *
CapitaLand homepage on 25 Moorgate
;Vincenzo Lunardi

Site with information about the balloon attempt and a model of the hydrogen balloon.

Site with information about the balloon attempt.

Site with picture of the stone marking the landing spot of Lunardi's balloon at Welham Green.
Streetmap.co.uk
showing Welham Green and Ware in Hertfordshire {{City of London gates Buildings and structures demolished in 1762 London Wall and its gates Streets in the City of London Districts of the City of London Central business districts in the United Kingdom Former gates