Building    To 1760

Aldgate

Categories: London Wall

Originally a Roman gate it was rebuilt a number of times:  1108–47, 1215, 1607-09. As a customs official Chaucer lived in the rooms above the gate, 1374-1386. The Cass Charity school used the upper floor as a children's dinning room in the 18th century. The Aldgate was removed 1760 to allow for street widening, but it was reused. From British History: “Aldgate was bought by {Ebenezer} Mussell, of Bethnal Green, a zealous antiquary, who inhabited a house belonging to Lord Viscount Wentworth, built in the reign of James II. Mr. Mussell rebuilt the gate on the north side of his mansion, to which he henceforth gave the name of Aldgate House.”  Elsewhere, sadly, we learn that his widow remarried and her new husband cleared the site for redevelopment.

Our picture comes from the nearby No 5 of the lovely tiled London Wall Walk markers.  It shows how it is thought the Roman Aldgate may have looked.

See Cripplegate for the full list of 8 gates of old London.

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Aldgate

Commemorated ati

Aldgate

Site of Aldgate demolished 1760. The Corporation of the City of London

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Chaucer and Aldgate

{On a worn notice stuck to the pavement immediately below the wooden structur...

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Other Subjects

Medieval bastion

Medieval bastion

First conserved in 1959 by the Ministry of Works when it was in the basement of the then new General Post Office.  The picture source is a report by the developers of the current building. 

Building, London Wall

1 memorial
Cripplegate

Cripplegate

Cripplegate was originally the northern entrance to the Roman fort, built c.AD120. This Roman gate probably remained in use until at least the late Saxon period when it is mentioned in 10th and 11t...

Building, London Wall

1 memorial
Moor Gate

Moor Gate

This gate was made in the London Wall early in the 15th century to allow access to Moor Fields, marshy moor-land outside the wall. By 1606 the area had been improved and became London's first publi...

Building, London Wall

1 memorial
Aldersgate

Aldersgate

Sometimes used as a prison and to display the remains of gruesomely executed traitors. Taken down and rebuilt in 1617, damaged in the Great Fire of 1666 but not finally removed until 1761, to impro...

Building, London Wall

1 memorial
Newgate

Newgate

Newgate was the western exit through the Roman London Wall. In later years the gate house was about 100 feet wide. Part of this building was used, from at least the 12th century, as a prison and th...

Building, London Wall

1 memorial