North from Leadenhall Street and Cornhill to Norton Folgate (P.O. Directory). In Bishopsgate Wards Within and Without, with a few houses in Cornhill Ward (O.S.).
First mention: March, 1910 (L.C.C. List of Streets, 1912).
Former names : "Bishopsgate Street Within." "Bishopsgate Street Without" (Hatton, 1708, to March, 1910). "Bishopsgate Street" (Agas, (G)-Greenwood, 1827). "Bisshopesgatestrat" (Ct. H.W. I. 352), 1329.
Stow seems to confine the name "Bishopsgate Street" to the part within the gate (S. 165).
So called of the gate (S.ib.).
In Strype's time (1720) the Fire of London not having destroyed this street, many of the old timber houses were still standing at that date (ed. 1720, I. ii. 107), but much of it was destroyed by fire in 1765.
Many of these old houses were in existence in the middle of the 19th century, and the Rev. T. Hugo in his itinerary of the Ward of Bishopsgate drew attention to several of them, notably Nos. 81-85 Bishopsgate Street Without, erected 1590 (L. and M. Arch. Soc. Trans. p. 158), Sir Paul Pindar's house and the adjoining houses, Nos. 170 and 171, Nos. 174-176 and 36-39, Nos. 26, 18, and Nos. 7 and 8 (ib. p. 158, et seq.).
At No. 66 Bishopsgate Street Within was a finely groined undercroft of the 14th century (ib. p. 168).
The street has now been entirely rebuilt.
A tesselated pavement was discovered 13 ft. below the street level in 1839 under No. 101, 53 ft. from the street, and 15 ft. from the Excise Yard (R. Smith, 54). A Roman pavement was found under the south-eastern area of the Excise Office, 6 ft. 10 in. deep in Broad Street, and another at a depth of 13 ft. 6 in. in Bishopsgate Street in a bed of coarse concrete 6 in. thick laid in the gravel (ib.).
A Roman pavement was also found in 1908 at the rear of Nos. 31 and 33, 6 ft. below the level of the roadway here, and 9-10 feet below the level of Bishopsgate.
Gaulish pottery was found near Sun Street in 1843 and cinerary urns in Artillery Lane and Widegate Street.