h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The City Gates of London, UK - A2242973
Author: Mina - U290

This is the entry that belongs to The City Wall of London. It was too long for one entry so I had to split it. Hopefully they will be linked together once they've both hit the Front Page.

I'll have a good look at this later. First impression is that there seems to be a missing paragraph - a blank space with a full stop.

As I subbed the first one, I'll volunteer for this (if I'm allowed to do this at this stage).

.

That's what I've just removed. I moved a sentence and forgot to delete the bit it came from.

Could happen to any of us, Mina!

Interesting. Never knew where all those place names came from in the city.
Oberon2001

Thanks very much.

I'm just letting any 'readers' know that I'm having some time off work the rest of this week, and so I'm intending to turn my home pc off. I don't want to be distracted from my spring cleaning by h2g2!

So please comment, but don't be upset if I don't come back for a couple of days - I should be back at the weekend.

Mina,

Some comments.

I think the 'Oranges and Lemons' link would be better hung on 'bells' than where it is. Or you could stretch it to 'bells of St Mary le Bow and other churches'.

'Not a very glamorous end for such imposing and important structures that had watched over the City for over 1500 years.' > This isn't a sentence, although in the context of the entry, this isn't a big deal. More importantly, I'd like to know at this stage when the gates were built to justify the 1500 years comment.

It might be good to give the definition of Barbican, ie 'a tower that is part of a defensive structure (such as a castle)'.

'In 1244 it was rebuilt by the Brewers Company, and then rebuilt again in 1491, had alterations in 1663 and when it was finally demolished in 1760 so that the street could be widened the materials were sold to a local carpenter for the princely sum of £91.' > I think this should be two sentences split at '...widened. The ...'.

'Lydgate, monk of Bury' - which Bury? I was born in Bury, but there are several. Do you mean Bury St Edmunds, Bury, Lancashire or any of the other Bury's.

This is a nice link for Cripplegate: http://www.sacklunch.net/placenames/C/CripplegateorCrepelgate.html.

Looking for links to 'Aldgate', I found this interesting link, which gives a different probable derivation; http://barryoneoff.co.uk/html/gates_to_the_city.html - as you will see, the derivation could be 'from the word Ealth, (an owner or builder)'.

The same link also gives more information about the derivation and history of 'Aldersgate' and an alternative derivation for 'Ludgate' to King Lud.

Here's another link suggesting that 'Aldgate' derives from 'old gate' which I must admit was my first thought: http://www.bricklanerestaurants.com/origins.html

I think it would be nice to say something about the Hansa merchants, perhaps via a footnote.

I've done a bit of poking and prodding about Hansa merchants and have found these links:

http://www.esh.ed.ac.uk/CEU/Velich.htm

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/alrc/publications/reports/91/ch5.html (actually this and another link: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/alrc/publications/reports/91/ch5.html - could form the basis of another entry in itself).

Very nice entry Mina I love reading your London entries - there's always something in them that I didn't know

I have some comments to make on this one.

"The gates that guarded the entrances to the City of London..."
That sentence doesn't quite sound right without some reference to a time or period of time. It might read better as 'The gates which once guarded'.

"at nine pm, or dusk" and "at sunrise, or six am"
Do you think it would be worth adding in brackets after each one 'whichever came earlier' and 'whichever came later' respectively?

The word 'wall' when referring specifically to London Wall is sometimes capitalised, sometimes not.

"After the restoration of King Charles"
Isn't that more usually referred to as the restoration of the Monarchy?

"all of the City gates were unhinged"
I know the feeling

From 'Cripplegate':
"It already in place..."
There's a missing 'was' there.
"which was built 120 AD"
And a missing 'in'.

From 'Aldgate':
"It was at the corner of the street"
'Street' should be plural, since it's on a corner and you mention two street names.
"port of London"
I'm not 100% sure about this one, but if he was working for the people who ran the port, should it be capitalised - 'Port of London'?

From 'Ludgate':
"along the north bank of the river".
"just above a crossing of the Fleet".
Since it hasn't been mentioned before, I reckon it ought to be made clear that the Fleet is a river, and to avoid any confusion with the un-named river mentioned a few sentences earlier, it should also be made clear that that river is The Thames.

From 'Bishopsgate':
to keep the taut"
A missing 'm'.

With such a short... in fact, non-existant description of Newgate, I feel that entry ends rather precipitously. Are you going to expand this section?


Scout
Back in the saddle again

Thanks for all the comments!

ZSF!:

Tweaked the Oranges and Lemons link -

"More importantly, I'd like to know at this stage when the gates were built to justify the 1500 years comment." Good point - They were built at the same time as the City Wall, but I haven't mentioned this at all. So I've added a paragraph at the top that steals its first sentence shamelessly from the City Wall entry. Hope that makes it clearer. I've also added a link to the nearly Edited version of the City Wall entry. Hopefully that one will make the EG first. I've also changed it to "Not a very glamorous end for such imposing and important structures that had been watching over the City for over 1500 years." which I hope makes a little more sense.

"It might be good to give the definition of Barbican" I've put in the same one as in the City Wall entry.

" I think this should be two sentences split at '...widened. The ...'."

" which Bury?" There was a weird bit of text before this that should have read 'Bury St Edmunds' which I've now corrected. This should make it clear that the Bury he was monk of is Bury St Edmunds. Especially as the body was St Edmund...

I'm not going to add the links to other websites about the gates, because this entry gives all the accurate information that I've been able to find - and it seems pointless to write something for h2g2, only to link to external websites about the very thing that I'm writing about. Especially as I don't use websites to research my London entries - there is too much risk that they contain inaccuracies - something that I've found before when I've done research. Plus it's annoying that they get to chat in the first person, and I don't. I have added the one about the Hansa merchants though - good find!

Gosho:

"I love reading your London entries - there's always something in them that I didn't know " Well ta very much!

I've done all the other tweaks that you mention, thanks for your eagle eyes!

I'm not sure what to do about Newgate - having written such a long entry already there doesn't seem much left to add. Can I pinch the introduction from the Newgate entry? It's got much of what I've written about the gates here, dates of building and tidbits of information. Is it ok to repeat myself?

Well, the beginning of the Newgate entry seems to concentrate mostly on the prison, only mentioning the gate in parentheses. I think that the prison is definitely worth mentioning in this entry, but is there anything else about the gate you could find to put in here?

Incidentally, I was reading 'London for Beginners' (Remeber the 'Beginners books? 'London' is the one which was written about the GLC at the time Thatcher was busy abolishing it ) again last night, and there's a reproduction in it of a map from the late 1590s. Cripplegate was spelt 'Creple Gate'

I'll see if I can come up with something this afternoon.

That's a very old map! I haven't seen one before the 19th century, so I've never seen the wall or gates properly on a map.

I'll bet that if you did the right Google image search you could come up with an old map online somewhere And there must be several books with old maps in the local library too If you want to take your research to the nth level, you could even take a walk down to that map shop in Long Acre... Stanfords?

The map in the book I was reading isn't reproduced too well - it's like a bad photocopy, but the 'Beginners' books weren't known for their quality of printing, were they That's a pity, because it's one of those old maps which has all the churches listed underneath the map, against a letter or number which appears next to the church on the map itself. One of them is calle 'Barbican', but I can't see it on the map because it isn't clear enough

Well would you Adan and Eve it - here's the very map
http://vrcoll.fa.pitt.edu/medart/image/England/london/Maps-of-London/Map-London-Norden-1593-s.jpg

It comes from this page
http://vrcoll.fa.pitt.edu/medart/image/England/london/Maps-of-London/London-Maps.html

There are other maps on that page, some of which are older but say 'Cripple Gate'

If you want to go on down that road, I simply searched for on Google images. I'll leave you to go through the 65,100 results

ooh, lovely. The maps I have came from Stanfords, but they are much later than that. I did enjoy having a good Google though.

I've updated Newgate with what appears to be lots of guesswork about the gate.

Looks a lot better now Mina - it doesn't kinda leave you hanging

Here's another webiste with pages you could use to link to descriptions of the sites some of the gates - scroll down to 'Ward/parish maps'
http://www.londonancestor.com/maps/maps.htm

I'll have a scroll through those later.

What's interesting is that last night I was reading something written in 1866, and they had no idea when Newgate was built either, and went for the first authentic mention in 1218. Hopefully the excavations are correct, otherwise it makes my 1000 years comment just sensasionalist rubbish.

Hi Mina. Great entry
Sorry if the following is a bit picky but I am a LOONie

The word 'it' is used copiously, sometimes ambiguously, could some occurrences be altered?

Specifically:
In Intro
at nine pm (whichever came earlier), or dusk (whichever came later), the gates were shut. They reopened at sunrise, or six am , next morning. >
at nine pm, or dusk, (whichever came earlier) the gates were shut. They reopened at sunrise, or six am, (whichever came later) next morning. (It think this is what was meant by the suggestion earlier in the thread)

In Cripplegate
Lydgate, monk of Bury, claimed that it cured many lame peasants as it passed through the gate. 'Cripplegate' could be an Anglo-Saxon term - crepel - which means a covered way/underground passage.
>
Lydgate, a monk of Bury, claimed that the body cured many lame peasants as it passed through the gate. Alternatively 'Cripplegate' could be an Anglo-Saxon term - crepel - which means a covered way/underground passage. (perhaps these alterations make the sentence clearer)

In Aldgate
but it was rebuilt
> but the gateway was rebuilt (open to misinterpretation since you also mention Colchester and the City Wall
assured its continued importance
>assured the gateway's continued importance (similarly)

The ground level had already risen 7 feet
>The ground level had already risen seven feet - Could you also add the significance of this? eg 'This indicates the phenomenal amount of use the area had been subject to'
in Aldersgate
as it gave access to beyond the wall and ditch to St Bartholomew's Priory, the London Charterhouse and the livestock market and fair on Smithfield.
> as it gave access to St Bartholomew's Priory, the London Charterhouse and the livestock market and fair on Smithfield, which all lay beyond the city wall and ditch . (perhaps less confusing)

in Ludgate
from west > from the west
marked by a plague > marked by a plaque

Tradition has it that it may have been built by an ancient Briton, King Lud in 66 BC, but it is more likely that the Romans built it. It is likely that it is named after him.
> Tradition has it that the gate may have been built by an ancient Briton, King Lud in 66 BC, but it is more likely that the Romans were the first to build it, and that it is simply named after him. (perhaps)

It was rebuilt again after being destroyed (the gate or the prison?)
> The gateway was rebuilt again after being destroyed

the London workhouse in Bishopsgate St. > the workhouse in Bishopsgate Street. (surely there was more than one workhouse in London?)

in Bishopsgate
known as 'Spital' > was the Priory a hospital? (that being an archaic meaning of 'spital') - perhaps deserves a footnote for the meaning

Wormwood St > Wormwood Street

In Moorgate
open spaces of Moorfields, it is the only gate that described its location in its name. > open spaces of Moorfields. This is the only gate whose name described its location.

the first half of the fields ... tenter grounds. This meaning of these two phrases isn't very clear to me in the context described.

In Newgate
is not easily to pin down > is not easy to pin down / is not easily pinned down
4 feet > four feet
the church of St Paul's burned down in 1807 > 1807? How does this fit with the 12th century mentioned later in the paragraph?

demoilished > demolished

Pimms

Its interesting how much Londonabillia is integrated into our language and we don't realise it.

I always heard the Walls of London were to keep the Londoners in, not people out.

Good read.