L 0 N B O N. 
ga'fe in repair; and alfo to defend it whenever it fliould 
Jae attacked by an enemy. It was elegantly rebuilt by 
them in 1479. On the fouth fide, over the gateway, was 
a ftone image of a bifhop with a mitre on liis head : he 
had a long beard, eyes funk, and an old mortified face, 
and was fuppofed to reprefent St. Erkenwald. See PlateIV. 
On the north fide was another figure of a bifhop with a 
fm'oofh face, reaching out his right hand to beftow his be¬ 
nediction, and holding a crofier in his left, who is thought 
to have beef) bifhop William the Norman. This laft was 
accompanied by two other figures in ftone, fuppofed to 
reprefent king Alfred, and his fon Eldred earl of Mercia. 
In the year 1551, the above-mentioned merchants pre¬ 
pared ftone for rebuilding the gate ; but, that company 
being difTolved about this period, a flop was put to the 
work, and the old gate remained till the year 17P, when 
it was quite taken down, and rebuilt at the expenfe of 
the city. When it was almoft finifhed, the arch fell down ; 
but, though it was a great thoroughfare, and this accident 
happened in the middle of day, no perfon was hurt. Over 
the gateway was a carving of 'the city-arms, fupported by 
dragons, and on each fide was a poftern for the conve¬ 
nience of foot-paffengers. The rooms in the ancient gate 
were appropriated to. the ufe of one of the lord-mayor’s 
carvers; but, in the ftead thereof, he has been of late 
years paid twenty- pounds per annum by the city. 
Near this gate (fays Mr. Weever) was buried Nennius, 
duke of Locria ; the fon of fitly, brother to Lud and 
Caftibelan kings of Britain. Nennius was, it appears, a 
great warrior, and difplayed molt extraordinary courage 
in the courle of the Roman invafion. With his own hand 
he killed Labienus the tribune ; and routed Julius Caefar 
fcimfelf; but not before he had received a wound of which 
he died.' His body was refcued by the Britons. He Itill 
grafped the fword of Caefar, which, with every funeral ho¬ 
nour, was placed by his fide in his coffin. Nennius is 
laid to have been buried near Bifhopfgate: but it will be 
recolleCted, that, at the time of the battle in which he is 
fuppofed to have been killed, which was foon after the 
Roman legions palled the Thames, and marching from the 
•welt environed the north fide of Trinovant, this town had 
neither gates nor walls; nor had the iiland any bifhops : 
the civic walls were built by Conflantine the Great about 
A.D. 300. at which time it is fuppofed by foine that Bi- 
fliopfgate was efeCted by Reftitutus bilhop of London, a 
prelate whoalfifted at thecounfel of Arles, and fubfcribed 
after the bifhop of York. But, although the northern 
fide of the metropolis was a thick foreft, there is, from the 
•antiquities discovered in the part of it that we are now 
contemplating, reafon to believe that it was a cemetery of 
the ancient Britons, as it afterwards certainly was of the 
Anglo-Romans, who ufed to ereCf their funeral piles, and 
inter the afhes of their dead, without the gates of their 
cities; whence fanum has, in contradiftinftion to templum , 
been fuppofed to fignify a cemetery. That Nennius was- 
buried in this field, or burial-place, is therefore very pro¬ 
bable, becaufe at remote periods, even when the firft fewer 
was formed, there was found in or near the fpot alluded 
to feveral coffins of ftone evidently of Britifh and .Saxon 
manufacture, containing the bones, as appeared by their 
vehicles, of eminent perfons ; and alfo, fcattered in dif¬ 
ferent parts, many human bones which it was fuppofed 
had been buried in coffins of wood. To the eaft of the 
Hofpital of St. Mary Spital, and in a field called Lalef- 
worth, it happened about the year 1576, when the earth 
was excavated for the purpofe of making bricks for the 
new erections, in Spital-fields, that many earthen urns 
were found; containing afhes and burned bones, evidently 
©f the Roman inhabitants of the. diftriCt. 
6. Moorgatc. In the year 14-15, the wall of the city was 
broken near Coleman-ftreet, and a poftern built', which was 
afterwards called Moorgate, from its vicinity to Moorfields. 
In 1511 this poftern was rebuilt, dikes and bridges were 
made, and the ground levelled, and made more commo- 
.dious for the citizens to pafs to their adjacent fields and 
Vai.. XIII- No. 892. 
IO:I 
gardens. The late edifice, which was one of the mod 
magnificent gates of the city, was ereCted in the year 
1647, and confided of a lofty arch, and two pofterns for 
foot-paffengers. The upper part of the gate was adorned 
with Corinthian pilafters, fupporting their proper enta¬ 
blatures, and with a round pediment, in which were the 
city-arms ; and the apartments over the gate were appro¬ 
priated to the ufe of one of the lord-mayor’s carvers. 
About the year 1636, the city-wall between Bifhopfgate 
was broken down oppofite Winchefter-ftreet, and a pof- 
tern-gate made there for the accommodation of foot-paf¬ 
fengers ; but this has been taken away, and the foot-way 
conliderably enlarged. In the year 1635 the pofterns of 
Bafinghall and Aldermanbury were ereCted ; but thefe 
alfo have been taken away, by order of the lord-mayor,, 
aldermen, and common-council; and the feveral paffages 
through Londou-wall to Fore-lireet are now open, ele¬ 
gant, and commodious. 
7. Cripplegate. At the difiance of one thoufand and 
thirty-two feet to the weft of Moorgate, flood Cripplegate, 
fo named from a number of cripples who formerly begged 
there. The greaqantiquity of this gate cannot be doubted ; 
for, in the hiftory of Edmund king of the Eall Angles, 
written by Albas Floriacenfis, and fince that by John 
Lydgate, it is afferted, that, in the year 1010, the Danes 
ravaging the kingdom of the Eaft Angles, Alv.in bifhop 
of Helmeham caufed the body of king Edmund the martyr 
to be conveyed from Bury St. Edmund’s, through the 
kingdom of the Eaft Saxons, and into London, by the 
way of Cripplegate, where it is pretended that the body 
wrought miracles, making fome of the lame walk upright, 
praifing God. Its antiquity likewife appears from the 
charter of William the Conqueror, confirming the foun¬ 
dation of the college in London called St. Martin the 
Great, in which are thefe words: “ I do give and grant 
unto the fame church, and canons, ferving God therein, 
all the lands, and the moor without the poftern, which 
is called Cripplegate, on either part of the poftern.” 
This gate was formerly ufed as a prifon, to which 
debtors, and perfons charged with trefpaffes, were com¬ 
mitted. In the year 1244, this gate was rebuilt by the 
company of Brewers of London ; and, in the year 1483, 
Edmund Shaw, mayor of the city, bequeathed by his will 
four hundred marks, which, with the remains of the old 
gate, was to build a new one; and this was accordingly 
performed in the year 1491. The laft account we have o ? 
any reparation of this gate is in the year 1663, when the 
following infcrjption was placed upon it; “This Gate 
was repaired and beautified, and the foot-poftern new 
made at the charge of the city of London, the fifteenth 
year of the reign of our fovereign lord King Charles II. 
and in the mayoralty of Sir John Robinfon, Knight and 
Baronet, Lieutenant of the Tower ofXondon, and Alder¬ 
man of this Ward; A. D. 1663.” 
This gate, which was a plain folid edifice, and void of 
all ornament, had more of the appearance of a fortifica¬ 
tion than any other gate of the city. The rooms over it 
were occupied by the water-bailiff of the city ; and the 
gate had only one poftern. Mr. Maitland has given it as 
his opinion, that, in the year 1010, this was the only gate 
in the north wall of the city, as it flood more convenient 
for one of the original gates than Alderfgate ; and he 
thinks that this gate was originally eredled over the Ro¬ 
man military way which was called the Ermjne-llreet, 
and led from London to Hornfey. It is not impoflible 
that the cuflonr of reading proclamations at the end of 
Wood-llreet, in Gheapfide, may have arifen from the cir- 
cumftance of its having been one of the old Roman mi¬ 
litary ways. 
8. Newgate was fituated at the diftance of one thoufand 
and thirty-feven feet fouth-weft from the fpot where Al¬ 
derfgate flood ; and it is the opinion of moft of our anti¬ 
quarians, that it obtained its name from being eredted in 
the reign of Henry I. feveral hundred years after the four 
original gates of the city. Howel, diflents from this opi- 
-E e uiorf, 
