The gate was taken down in 1761.
Drawn by Thos. H. Shepherd.
ALDGATE IN 1830
In 1291, Thomas de Alegate leaves to his wife Eleanor, his houses within Alegate (Calendar of Wills). The street is often mentioned afterwards.
The ward of Aldgate in the year 1276 was called the ward of John of Northampton, the then alderman. There was a hermitage on the south side of the gate within a garden; the garden was let, in 1325, to one Peter a “blader,” or corn merchant. It is not stated whether the hermitage was then occupied. There were houses beside the gate in 1354. The Prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, was alderman ex officio of Portsoken Ward; in 1378 we find him sworn to fill the office “and faithfully to do all things touching that office.”
In 1349, the Calendar of Wills speaks of tenements in “Algate Street.” Roman remains have been found in Aldgate; at the gate there was a “Roomland”; without the gate was a great pit for the burial of those who died of the plague. In 1315 Sir John de Sandale, leaving London on business of the King, put the Great Seal into the custody of Sir William de Ayremynn at his inn near Aldgate. In the same year he received at his inn Edward de Baliol, newly returned from beyond the sea.
At the east end of the street, under a house facing the pump, was still to be seen, until 1868, a crypt formerly supposed to have been that of an ancient church, dedicated to St. Michael and taken down when the Priory of the Holy Trinity was first founded.
This handsome Gothic structure, which is situated between the east end of Leadenhall and Fenchurch Streets, under the houses fronting the pump at Aldgate, is still remaining entire, exhibiting a most beautiful specimen of ancient architecture.
It is shown (L. & M. Archæological Journal, iv. p. 223 et seq.) that the crypt could not have been that of St. Michael’s Church. The paper referred to proved that the Church of St. Michael was not on that site at all. It quotes from the Liber Dunthorne the boundaries of the soke of the monastery of the Trinity, which are very nearly the same as those of Aldgate ward.
It concludes that it was more likely the crypt of a great house, perhaps the ward house.