169-579: Shoreditch is an area in London , England and is located in the London Borough of Hackney alongside neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets , which are also perceived as part of the area due to historic ecclesiastical links. Shoreditch lies just north-east of the border with the City of London and is considered to be a part of London's East End . In the 16th century, Shoreditch was an important centre of
338-472: A Bronze Age bridge were found on the south River Thames foreshore, upstream from Vauxhall Bridge . Two of the timbers were radiocarbon dated to 1750–1285 BC. In 2010, foundations of a large timber structure, dated to 4800–4500 BC, were found on the Thames' south foreshore downstream from Vauxhall Bridge. Both structures are on the south bank of the Thames, where the now-underground River Effra flows into
507-543: A papal bull authorising some limited reforms in the English Church as early as 1518, but reformers (both conservative and radical) had become increasingly frustrated at their lack of progress. In November 1529, Parliament passed Acts reforming apparent abuses in the English Church. They set a cap on fees, both for the probate of wills and mortuary expenses for burial in hallowed ground; tightened regulations covering rights of sanctuary for criminals; and reduced to two
676-518: A different nature from those taking place in Germany, Bohemia , France, Scotland and Geneva . Across much of continental Europe, the seizure of monastic property was associated with mass discontent among the common people and the lower levels of clergy and civil society against powerful and wealthy ecclesiastical institutions. Such popular hostility against the church was rare in England before 1558;
845-542: A larger area, similar in size to Greater London, although some outer districts are excluded and some just outside included. The Greater London boundary has been aligned to the M25 motorway in places. Further urban expansion is now prevented by the Metropolitan Green Belt , although the built-up area extends beyond the boundary in places, producing a separately defined Greater London Urban Area . Beyond this
1014-459: A new station named Shoreditch High Street closer to central Shoreditch. This is now served by London Overground services on part of the site of the old Bishopsgate Goods Yard , which was demolished in 2004. The station was built on a viaduct and is fully enclosed in a concrete box structure. This is so future building works on the remainder of the Bishopsgate site can be undertaken keeping
1183-403: A population density of 802 per acre (325 per hectare). In addition to the growing number of stores selling goods, such as Harding, Howell & Co. —one of the first department stores —located on Pall Mall , the streets had scores of street sellers . London's overcrowded conditions led to cholera epidemics, claiming 14,000 lives in 1848, and 6,000 in 1866. Rising traffic congestion led to
1352-573: A population of 7,172,036 in 2001 and a population density of 11,760 inhabitants per square mile (4,542/km ). The extended area known as the London Metropolitan Region or the London Metropolitan Agglomeration, comprises a total area of 3,236 square miles (8,382 km ) has a population of 13,709,000 and a population density of 3,900 inhabitants per square mile (1,510/km ). Modern London stands on
1521-580: A post- Brexit exodus of stock listings from the London Stock Exchange , London remains a European economic powerhouse, and one of the world's major financial centres . It hosts Europe's largest concentration of higher education institutions , some of which are the highest-ranked academic institutions in the world: Imperial College London in natural and applied sciences , the London School of Economics in social sciences , and
1690-763: A property overlooking St Helen's churchyard in the Bishopsgate Within area of the City. His early plays were first performed in Shoreditch, at The Theatre and at the nearby Curtain Theatre , built the following year and 200 yards (183 m) to the south (marked by a commemorative plaque in Hewett Street off Curtain Road). Romeo and Juliet was first performed here, gaining "Curtain plaudits", Henry V
1859-456: A quarter of the nation's landed wealth. An English medieval proverb said that if the abbot of Glastonbury married the abbess of Shaftesbury , their heir would have more land than the king of England. 200 more houses of friars in England and Wales constituted a second distinct wave of monastic zeal in the 13th century. Friaries , for the most part, were concentrated in urban areas. Unlike monasteries, friaries had no income-bearing endowments;
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#17327723434492028-455: A royal servant and counsellor, in the course of which his correspondence included strong condemnations of the idleness and vice in monastic life, alongside his equally vituperative attacks on Luther. Henry himself corresponded continually with Erasmus, prompting him to be more explicit in his public rejection of the key tenets of Lutheranism and offering him church preferment should he wish to return to England. On famously failing to receive from
2197-555: A small sector of the Roman Ermine Street and modern A10 . Known also as the Old North Road, it was a major coaching route to the north, exiting the City at Bishopsgate . The east–west course of Old Street–Hackney Road was also probably originally a Roman Road, connecting Silchester with Colchester , bypassing the City of London to the south. Shoreditch Church (officially known as St Leonard's, Shoreditch )
2366-731: A speech in November 2010. As a result, the name of Shoreditch has become synonymous with the concept of contemporary " hipsterfication " of regenerated urban areas. As a pioneer among similar transformations across the UK, various phrases have been coined, from "Shoreditchification" to "Very Shoreditch". In 2014, the Boundary Estate and the nearby area came under the East Shoreditch Neighbourhood Forum. Forum status ceased to have effect on 5 February 2019 but
2535-495: A temperate oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ). Rainfall records have been kept in the city since at least 1697, when records began at Kew . At Kew, the most rainfall in one month is 7.4 inches (189 mm) in November 1755 and the least is 0 inches (0 mm) in both December 1788 and July 1800. Mile End also had 0 inches (0 mm) in April 1893. The wettest year on record is 1903, with a total fall of 38.1 inches (969 mm) and
2704-476: A treatise which declared that the monastic life had no scriptural basis, was pointless and also actively immoral, incompatible with the true spirit of Christianity. Luther also declared that monastic vows were meaningless and that no one should feel bound by them. Luther, a one-time Augustinian friar , found some comfort when these views had a dramatic effect: a special meeting of the German province of his order held
2873-798: A variety of venues to rival those of the West End. Art galleries, bars, restaurants, media businesses and the building of the Hackney Community College campus are features of this transformation. In the mid-1960s, the main streets of Shoreditch (Old Street, Shoreditch High Street and Curtain Road, Great Eastern Street) were formed into a one-mile-long (1.5-kilometre) one-way system, which became associated with traffic congestion, poor conditions for walking and cycling, high speeds, high collision rates, and delays for bus services. The gyratory system came to be seen as "the main factor holding back
3042-644: Is 1,049.8 millibars (31.00 inHg) on 20 January 2020. Summers are generally warm, sometimes hot. London's average July high is 23.5 °C (74.3 °F). On average each year, London experiences 31 days above 25 °C (77.0 °F) and 4.2 days above 30.0 °C (86.0 °F). During the 2003 European heat wave , prolonged heat led to hundreds of heat-related deaths. A previous spell of 15 consecutive days above 32.2 °C (90.0 °F) in England in 1976 also caused many heat related deaths. A previous temperature of 37.8 °C (100.0 °F) in August 1911 at
3211-512: Is agreed that the name came into these languages from Common Brythonic ; recent work tends to reconstruct the lost Celtic form of the name as * Londonjon or something similar. This was then adapted into Latin as Londinium and borrowed into Old English. Until 1889, the name "London" applied officially only to the City of London , but since then it has also referred to the County of London and to Greater London . In 1993, remains of
3380-545: Is formed of two tiers: a citywide, strategic tier and a local tier. Citywide administration is coordinated by the Greater London Authority (GLA), while local administration is carried out by 33 smaller authorities. The GLA consists of two elected components: the mayor of London , who has executive powers , and the London Assembly , which scrutinises the mayor's decisions and can accept or reject
3549-760: Is headquartered in Thames House on the north bank of the River Thames and the foreign intelligence service ( MI6 ) is headquartered in the SIS Building on the south bank. Crime rates vary widely across different areas of London. Crime figures are made available nationally at Local Authority and Ward level. In 2015, there were 118 homicides, a 25.5% increase over 2014. Recorded crime has been rising in London, notably violent crime and murder by stabbing and other means have risen. There were 50 murders from
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#17327723434493718-592: Is held by an independent . The ministerial post of minister for London was created in 1994, however as of 2024, the post has been vacant. Policing in Greater London, with the exception of the City of London , is provided by the Metropolitan Police ("The Met"), overseen by the mayor through the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC). The Met is also referred to as Scotland Yard after
3887-564: Is known as London . It is the capital of the United Kingdom and of England by convention rather than statute. The capital of England was moved to London from Winchester as the Palace of Westminster developed in the 12th and 13th centuries to become the permanent location of the royal court , and thus the political capital of the nation. Greater London encompasses a total area of 611 square miles (1,583 km ) an area which had
4056-660: Is of ancient origin. It is featured in the famous line "when I grow rich say the bells of Shoreditch", from the English nursery rhyme " Oranges and Lemons ". Shoreditch was the site of a house of canonesses, the Augustinian Holywell Priory (named after a Holy Well on the site), from the 12th century until its dissolution in 1539. This priory was located between Shoreditch High Street and Curtain Road to east and west, and Batemans Row and Holywell Lane to north and south. Nothing remains of it today. In 1574,
4225-694: Is the capital and largest city of both England and the United Kingdom , with a population of 8,866,180 in 2022. The wider metropolitan area is the largest in Western Europe , with a population of 14.9 million. London stands on the River Thames in southeast England, at the head of a 50-mile (80 km) estuary down to the North Sea , and has been a major settlement for nearly 2,000 years. Its ancient core and financial centre ,
4394-523: Is the vast London commuter belt . Greater London is split for some purposes into Inner London and Outer London , and by the River Thames into North and South , with an informal central London area. The coordinates of the nominal centre of London, traditionally the original Eleanor Cross at Charing Cross near the junction of Trafalgar Square and Whitehall , are about 51°30′26″N 00°07′39″W / 51.50722°N 0.12750°W / 51.50722; -0.12750 . Within London, both
4563-517: The 2012 Summer Olympics . London is an ancient name, attested in the first century AD, usually in the Latinised form Londinium . Modern scientific analyses of the name must account for the origins of the different forms found in early sources: Latin (usually Londinium ), Old English (usually Lunden ), and Welsh (usually Llundein ), with reference to the known developments over time of sounds in those different languages. It
4732-547: The Avignon Papacy . Their suppression was supported by the rival Roman Popes , conditional on all confiscated monastic property being redirected into other religious uses. The king's officers first sequestrated the assets of the alien priories in 1295–1303 under Edward I , and the pattern repeated for long periods over the course of the 14th century, most particularly in the reign of Edward III . Alien priories with functioning communities were forced to pay large sums to
4901-580: The Bethnal Green and Spitalfields areas of Tower Hamlets to include the name Shoreditch in their company's name and marketing material. This is also seen to a lesser extent in the St Luke's area of the London Borough of Islington . Shoreditch was an administrative unit with consistent boundaries from the Middle Ages until its merger into the London Borough of Hackney in 1965. Shoreditch
5070-540: The Black Death in the mid-14th century, London lost nearly a third of its population. London was the focus of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. London was a centre of England's Jewish population before their expulsion by Edward I in 1290. Violence against Jews occurred in 1190, when it was rumoured that the new king had ordered their massacre after they had presented themselves at his coronation. In 1264 during
5239-533: The Canary Wharf development. This was born out of London's increasing role as an international financial centre in the 1980s. Located about 2 miles (3 km) east of central London, the Thames Barrier was completed in the 1980s to protect London against tidal surges from the North Sea . The Greater London Council was abolished in 1986, leaving London with no central administration until 2000 and
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5408-461: The Church of Rome and had ridiculed such monastic practices as repetitive formal religion, superstitious pilgrimages for the veneration of relics, and the accumulation of monastic wealth. Henry appears to have shared these views, never having endowed a religious house and only once having undertaken a religious pilgrimage, to Walsingham in 1511. From 1518, Thomas More was increasingly influential as
5577-454: The City of London , was founded by the Romans as Londinium and has retained its medieval boundaries. The City of Westminster , to the west of the City of London, has been the centuries-long host of the national government and parliament . London grew rapidly in the 19th century , becoming the world's largest city at the time . Since the 19th century, the name "London" has referred to
5746-672: The Corn Laws in 1846 was specifically aimed at weakening Dutch economic power. London then overtook Amsterdam as the leading international financial centre. With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, an unprecedented growth in urbanisation took place, and the number of High Streets (the primary street for retail in Britain) rapidly grew. London was the world's largest city from about 1831 to 1925 , with
5915-580: The Elizabethan Theatre , and it has been an important entertainment centre since that time. Today, it hosts many pubs, bars and nightclubs. The most commercial areas lie closest to the City of London and along the A10 Road, with the rest mostly residential. Early spellings of the name include Soredich ( c. 1148 ), Soresdic (1183–4), Sordig (1204), Schoresdich (1220–21), and other variants. Toponymists are generally agreed that
6084-568: The Georgian era , new districts such as Mayfair were formed in the west; new bridges over the Thames encouraged development in South London . In the east, the Port of London expanded downstream. London's development as an international financial centre matured for much of the 18th century. In 1762, George III acquired Buckingham House , which was enlarged over the next 75 years. During
6253-690: The Jubilee line ) but was not carried forward, it would have had a new tube station near Shoreditch Church if it was built. Formerly a predominantly working-class area, since the 1990s Shoreditch has become a popular and fashionable part of London, particularly associated with the creative industries. Often conflated with its neighbouring sub-district of Hoxton, the area has been subject to considerable gentrification , with accompanying rises in land and property prices. Former industrial buildings have been converted to offices and flats, while Curtain Road and Old Street are notable for their clubs and pubs which offer
6422-634: The King's Road , Chelsea and Carnaby Street . The role of trendsetter revived in the punk era. In 1965 London's political boundaries were expanded in response to the growth of the urban area and a new Greater London Council was created. During The Troubles in Northern Ireland, London was hit from 1973 by bomb attacks by the Provisional Irish Republican Army . These attacks lasted for two decades, starting with
6591-627: The London Ambulance Service (LAS) NHS Trust , the largest free-at-the-point-of-use emergency ambulance service in the world. The London Air Ambulance charity operates in conjunction with the LAS where required. Her Majesty's Coastguard and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution operate on the River Thames , which is under the jurisdiction of the Port of London Authority from Teddington Lock to
6760-782: The Mediterranean was normally through Antwerp and over the Alps ; any ships passing through the Strait of Gibraltar to or from England were likely to be Italian or Ragusan . The reopening of the Netherlands to English shipping in January 1565 spurred a burst of commercial activity. The Royal Exchange was founded. Mercantilism grew and monopoly traders such as the East India Company were founded as trade expanded to
6929-613: The New Model Army entered London in 1647, and they were levelled by Parliament the same year. London was plagued by disease in the early 17th century, culminating in the Great Plague of 1665–1666, which killed up to 100,000 people, or a fifth of the population. The Great Fire of London broke out in 1666 in Pudding Lane in the city and quickly swept through the wooden buildings. Rebuilding took over ten years and
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7098-564: The New World . London became the main North Sea port, with migrants arriving from England and abroad. The population rose from about 50,000 in 1530 to about 225,000 in 1605. In the 16th century, William Shakespeare and his contemporaries lived in London during English Renaissance theatre . Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was constructed in 1599 in Southwark . Stage performances came to a halt in London when Puritan authorities shut down
7267-612: The Old Bailey bombing . Racial inequality was highlighted by the 1981 Brixton riot . Greater London's population declined in the decades after the Second World War, from an estimated peak of 8.6 million in 1939 to around 6.8 million in the 1980s. The principal ports for London moved downstream to Felixstowe and Tilbury , with the London Docklands area becoming a focus for regeneration, including
7436-472: The Reformation in England and Ireland was directed from the king and high society. These changes were initially met with popular suspicion; on some occasions and in particular localities, there was active resistance to the royal programme. Dissatisfaction with regular religious life, and with the gross extent of monastic wealth, was near universal amongst late medieval secular and ecclesiastical rulers in
7605-603: The Second Barons' War , Simon de Montfort 's rebels killed 500 Jews while attempting to seize records of debts. During the Tudor period , the Reformation produced a gradual shift to Protestantism . Much of London property passed from church to private ownership, which accelerated trade and business in the city. In 1475, the Hanseatic League set up a main trading base ( kontor ) of England in London, called
7774-516: The Second Suppression Act in 1539. While Thomas Cromwell , vicar-general and vicegerent of England, is often considered the leader of the dissolution, he merely oversaw the project—he had hoped for reform, not eliminating the practice. The dissolution project was created by England's Lord Chancellor, Thomas Audley , and Court of Augmentations head, Richard Rich . Historian George W. Bernard argues that: The dissolution of
7943-585: The Stalhof or Steelyard . It remained until 1853, when the Hanseatic cities of Lübeck , Bremen and Hamburg sold the property to South Eastern Railway . Woollen cloth was shipped undyed and undressed from 14th/15th century London to the nearby shores of the Low Countries . Yet English maritime enterprise hardly reached beyond the seas of north-west Europe . The commercial route to Italy and
8112-547: The Thames , its primary geographical feature, a navigable river which crosses the city from the south-west to the east. The Thames Valley is a flood plain surrounded by gently rolling hills including Parliament Hill , Addington Hills , and Primrose Hill . Historically London grew up at the lowest bridging point on the Thames. The Thames was once a much broader, shallower river with extensive marshlands ; at high tide, its shores reached five times their present width. Since
8281-428: The Tower of London ; the site featuring the Palace of Westminster , Church of St. Margaret , and Westminster Abbey ; and the historic settlement in Greenwich where the Royal Observatory defines the prime meridian (0° longitude ) and Greenwich Mean Time . Other landmarks include Buckingham Palace , the London Eye , Piccadilly Circus , St Paul's Cathedral , Tower Bridge , and Trafalgar Square . The city has
8450-399: The Victoria and Albert Museum . In the First World War , the Mayor and Borough of Shoreditch raised a pals battalion of volunteers from around the borough who would serve together as the 20th (Shoreditch) Battalion , Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge's Own) . The Middlesex Regiment the battalion belonged to was nicknamed the "Die-hards". For most of its time in the line, the unit
8619-414: The Victorian era the Thames has been extensively embanked , and many of its London tributaries now flow underground . The Thames is a tidal river, and London is vulnerable to flooding. The threat has increased over time because of a slow but continuous rise in high water level caused by climate change and by the slow 'tilting' of the British Isles as a result of post-glacial rebound . London has
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#17327723434498788-562: The metropolis around the City of London, historically split between the counties of Middlesex , Essex , Surrey , Kent , and Hertfordshire , which since 1965 has largely comprised the administrative area of Greater London , governed by 33 local authorities and the Greater London Authority . As one of the world's major global cities , London exerts a strong influence on world art , entertainment, fashion , commerce, finance, education , healthcare , media , science, technology, tourism , transport , and communications. Despite
8957-412: The suppression of the monasteries , was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541, by which Henry VIII disbanded Catholic monasteries , priories , convents , and friaries in England, Wales , and Ireland ; seized their wealth; disposed of their assets, and provided for their former personnel and functions. Though the policy was originally envisioned as a way to increase
9126-555: The 11th and 12th centuries. Few had been founded later than the end of the 13th century; the youngest was the Bridgettine nunnery of Syon Abbey , founded in 1415. Typically, 11th and 12th-century founders endowed monastic houses with revenue from landed estates and tithes appropriated from parish churches under the founder's patronage. As a consequence, religious houses in the 16th century controlled appointment to about two-fifths of all parish benefices in England, disposed of about half of all ecclesiastical income, and owned around
9295-401: The 11th century, London was clearly the largest town in England. Westminster Abbey , rebuilt in Romanesque style by King Edward the Confessor , was one of the grandest churches in Europe. Winchester had been the capital of Anglo-Saxon England , but from this time London became the main forum for foreign traders and the base for defence in time of war. In the view of Frank Stenton : "It had
9464-478: The 1530s corresponded little with the movement by Protestant Reformers, and encountered much popular hostility when they did. In 1536, Convocation adopted and Parliament enacted the Ten Articles , containing some terminology and ideas drawn from Luther and Melanchthon ; but any momentum towards Protestantism stalled when Henry VIII expressed his support for the Six Articles of 1539 , which remained in effect until after his death. Cardinal Wolsey had obtained
9633-440: The 16th century, monasticism had almost entirely disappeared from those European states whose rulers had adopted Lutheran or Reformed confessions of faith (Ireland being the only major exception). They continued in states that remained Catholic, and new community orders such as the Jesuits and Capuchins emerged alongside the older orders. The religious and political changes in England under Henry VIII and Edward VI were of
9802-401: The 17th century, wealthy traders and French Huguenot silkweavers moved to the area, establishing a textile industry centred to the south around Spitalfields. By the 19th century, Shoreditch was also the locus of the furniture industry, now commemorated in the Geffrye Museum on Kingsland Road. These industries declined in the late 19th century. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Shoreditch
9971-434: The 18th century, London was said to be dogged by crime, and the Bow Street Runners were established in 1750 as a professional police force. Epidemics during the 1720s and 30s saw most children born in the city die before reaching their fifth birthday. Coffee-houses became a popular place to debate ideas, as growing literacy and development of the printing press made news widely available, with Fleet Street becoming
10140-424: The Benedictine St Radegund's Priory, Cambridge to found Jesus College, Cambridge (1496), and William Waynflete , Bishop of Winchester acquiring Selborne Priory in Hampshire in 1484 for Magdalen College, Oxford . In the following century, Lady Margaret Beaufort obtained the property of Creake Abbey (whose religious had all died of sweating sickness in 1506) to fund her works at Oxford and Cambridge. She
10309-428: The City authorities banned the building of playhouses in the City of London area. Consequently, theatres were built in the suburbs, beyond its jurisdiction. The first of these came in 1576, when James Burbage built the first playhouse in England, known as " The Theatre ", on the site of the Priory (commemorated today by a plaque on Curtain Road, and excavated in 2008, by MoLAS ). William Shakespeare lived nearby in
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#173277234344910478-420: The City of London and the City of Westminster have city status . The City of London and the remainder of Greater London are both counties for the purposes of lieutenancies . The area of Greater London includes areas that are part of the historic counties of Middlesex , Kent , Surrey , Essex and Hertfordshire . More recently, Greater London has been defined as a region of England and in this context
10647-613: The Crown; some were kept, some were given or sold to Henry's supporters, others were assigned to his new monasteries of Syon Abbey and the Carthusians at Sheen Priory ; others were used for educational purposes. All these suppressions enjoyed papal approval but successive 15th-century popes continued to press for assurances that the confiscated monastic income would revert to religious uses. The medieval understanding of religious houses as institutions associated monasteries and nunneries with their property: their endowments of land and income, and not their current personnel of monks and nuns. If
10816-579: The Diet allowing him to confiscate any monastic lands he deemed necessary to increase royal revenues, and to allow the return of donated properties to the descendants of the donors. By the following Reduction of Gustav I of Sweden , Gustav gained large estates, as well as loyal supporters among the nobility who reclaimed donations given by their families to the convents. The Swedish monasteries and convents were simultaneously deprived of their livelihoods. They were banned from accepting new novices, and forbidden to prevent their existing members from leaving. However,
10985-463: The Divine Office. Even in houses with adequate numbers, the regular obligations of communal eating and shared living had not been fully enforced for centuries, as communities tended to sub-divide into a number of distinct familiae . In most larger houses, the full observance of the Canonical Hours had become the task of a sub-group of 'Cloister Monks', such that the majority of inhabitants were freed to conduct their business and live much of their lives in
11154-445: The Ecclesiastical Parishes sub-divided to better serve the needs of a growing population, while the Civil Parishes continued to be based on the same Ancient Parish areas. For civil purposes, the Metropolis Management Act 1855 turned the parish area into a new Shoreditch District of the Metropolis , with the same boundaries as the parish. The London Government Act 1899 converted these areas into Metropolitan Boroughs , again based on
11323-430: The Greenwich station was later disregarded as non-standard. Droughts can also, occasionally, be a problem, especially in summer, most recently in summer 2018, and with much drier than average conditions prevailing from May to December. However, the most consecutive days without rain was 73 days in the spring of 1893. Dissolution of the Monasteries The dissolution of the monasteries , occasionally referred to as
11492-563: The King and reject papal authority. Cromwell delegated his visitation authority to hand-picked commissioners, chiefly Richard Layton , Thomas Legh , John ap Rice and John Tregonwell , for the purposes of ascertaining the quality of religious life being maintained in religious houses, of assessing the prevalence of 'superstitious' religious observances such as the veneration of relics , and for inquiring into evidence of moral laxity (especially sexual). The chosen commissioners were mostly secular clergy, and appear to have been Erasmian, doubtful of
11661-408: The King as founder for assistance, only to find themselves dissolved arbitrarily. Rather than risk empanelling a jury, and with papal participation no longer being welcome, the Lord Chancellor , Thomas Audley , recommended that dissolution should be legalised retrospectively through a special act of Parliament. In 1521, Martin Luther had published De votis monasticis ( On the monastic vows ),
11830-419: The King. By the Submission of the Clergy , the English clergy and religious orders subscribed to the proposition that the King was, and had always been, the Supreme Head of the Church in England. Consequently, in Henry's view, any act of monastic resistance to royal authority would not only be treasonable, but also a breach of the monastic vow of obedience . Under heavy threats, almost all religious houses joined
11999-407: The Latin West. Bernard says there was: widespread concern in the later 15th and early 16th centuries about the condition of the monasteries. A leading figure here is the scholar and theologian Desiderius Erasmus who satirized monasteries as lax, as comfortably worldly, as wasteful of scarce resources, and as superstitious; he also thought it would be better if monks were brought more directly under
12168-603: The London area. This called for the Corporation of the city to extend its jurisdiction and administration over expanding areas around the city. Fearing an attempt by the Crown to diminish the Liberties of London , coupled with a lack of interest in administering these additional areas or concern by city guilds of having to share power, caused the Corporation's "The Great Refusal", a decision which largely continues to account for
12337-474: The Neighbourhood Area designation is unaffected by the expiry. The Stag's Head public house was Grade II listed in 2015 by Historic England . South Shoreditch has undergone an enormous transformation. Several five- or six-storey buildings have been knocked down in the area of Shoreditch that borders the City of London. In their place will be erected a variety of very tall buildings, mirroring
12506-596: The Papal Curia ; and although such arrangements were nominally temporary, commendatory abbacies often continued long-term. Then, by the Concordat of Bologna in 1516, Pope Leo X granted to Francis I authority to nominate almost all abbots and conventual priors in France. Around 80 per cent of French abbacies came to be held in commendam , the commendators often being lay courtiers or royal servants; around half
12675-744: The Pope a declaration of nullity regarding his marriage, Henry had himself declared Supreme Head of the Church of England in February 1531, and instigated a programme of legislation to establish this Royal Supremacy in law. In April 1533, an Act in Restraint of Appeals eliminated the right of clergy to appeal to "foreign tribunals" (Rome) over the King's head in any matter. All ecclesiastical charges and levies that had previously been payable to Rome would now go to
12844-460: The Thames. Despite the evidence of scattered Brythonic settlements in the area, the first major settlement was founded by the Romans around 47 AD, about four years after their invasion of 43 AD. This only lasted until about 61 AD, when the Iceni tribe led by Queen Boudica stormed it and burnt it to the ground. The next planned incarnation of Londinium prospered, superseding Colchester as
13013-539: The United Kingdom's population and over 16% of England's population. The Greater London Built-up Area is the fourth-most populous in Europe, with about 9.8 million inhabitants as of 2011. The London metropolitan area is the third-most populous in Europe, with about 14 million inhabitants as of 2016, making London a megacity . Four World Heritage Sites are located in London: Kew Gardens ;
13182-620: The Viking incursions formally agreed by the Danish warlord , Guthrum and the West Saxon king Alfred the Great in 886. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Alfred "refounded" London in 886. Archaeological research shows this involved abandonment of Lundenwic and a revival of life and trade within the old Roman walls . London then grew slowly until a dramatic increase in about 950. By
13351-536: The agreement of the papacy. Monastic wealth, regarded everywhere as excessive, offered a standing temptation for cash-strapped authorities. Almost all official action in the English dissolution was directed at the monasteries. The closing of the monasteries aroused popular opposition, but resistors became the targets of royal hostility. The surrender of the friaries, from an official perspective, arose almost as an afterthought, once it had been determined that all religious houses would have to go. In terms of popular esteem,
13520-583: The architectural styles in the City. The developments will result in more residential units being available for sale in Shoreditch than were produced by the Olympics athletes' village . One landmark development is the Principal Tower in Worship Street, designed by the architects Foster and Partners , and next to it is Principal Place , also designed by Foster and Partners. In July 2014, it
13689-462: The authority of bishops. At that time, quite a few bishops across Europe had come to believe that resources expensively deployed on an unceasing round of services by men and women in theory set apart from the world [would] be better spent on endowing grammar schools and university colleges to train men who would then serve the laity as parish priests, and on reforming the antiquated structures of over-large dioceses such as that of Lincoln . Pastoral care
13858-539: The balance tilted the other way. Almost all monasteries supported themselves from their endowments; in late medieval terms 'they lived off their own'. Unless they were notably bad landlords, they tended to enjoy widespread local support; they also commonly appointed local notables to fee-bearing offices. The friars were by contrast much more likely to have been the objects of local hostility, especially since their practice of soliciting income through legacies appears to have been perceived as diminishing family inheritances. By
14027-402: The bishop would seek to obtain papal approval for alternative use of the house's endowments in canon law . This, with royal agreement claiming 'foundership', would be presented to an 'empanelled jury' for consent to use of the property of the house in civil law. The royal transfer of alien monastic estates to educational foundations inspired bishops and, as the 15th century waned, this practice
14196-572: The body of Shore being retrieved from the ditch, and by a design on glazed tiles in a shop in Shoreditch High Street showing her meeting Edward IV. However, the area was known as Shoreditch long before Jane Shore lived: the Survey of London , for example, lists some 26 deeds dating from between c. 1148 and 1260 which use some version of the name. In another theory, also now discredited, antiquarian John Weever claimed that
14365-614: The centre of the British press. The invasion of Amsterdam by Napoleonic armies led many financiers to relocate to London and the first London international issue was arranged in 1817. Around the same time, the Royal Navy became the world's leading war fleet, acting as a major deterrent to potential economic adversaries. Following a fire in 1838, the Royal Exchange was redesigned by William Tite and rebuilt in 1844. The repeal of
14534-484: The city's metropolis. The City of London at its core once comprised the whole settlement, but as its urban area grew, the Corporation of London resisted attempts to amalgamate the city with its suburbs , causing "London" to be defined several ways. Forty per cent of Greater London is covered by the London post town , in which 'London' forms part of postal addresses. The London telephone area code (020) covers
14703-412: The city, to intimidate the inhabitants. In 1097, William II began building Westminster Hall , near the abbey. It became the basis of a new Palace of Westminster . In the 12th century, the institutions of central government, which had hitherto followed the royal English court around the country, grew in size and sophistication and became increasingly fixed, for most purposes at Westminster , although
14872-600: The combined revenue expenditure by London councils and the GLA amounted to just over £22 billion (£14.7 billion for the boroughs and £7.4 billion for the GLA). The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for Greater London, run by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority . It is the third largest fire service in the world. National Health Service ambulance services are provided by
15041-405: The comprehensive University College London . It is the most visited city in Europe and has the world's busiest city airport system . The London Underground is the world's oldest rapid transit system. London's diverse cultures encompass over 300 languages. The 2023 population of Greater London of just under 10 million made it Europe's third-most populous city , accounting for 13.4% of
15210-436: The corner of Redchurch Street, which developers had wished to knock down, were saved from demolition. They were deemed of special historic interest, giving the houses protection from destruction from 2019. Shoreditch covers a wide area, but its historic heart lies south of Old Street, around Shoreditch High Street and Shoreditch Church . The districts of Hoxton and Haggerston have been historically part of Shoreditch since
15379-626: The creation of the Greater London Authority . To mark the 21st century, the Millennium Dome , London Eye and Millennium Bridge were constructed. On 6 July 2005 London was awarded the 2012 Summer Olympics , as the first city to stage the Olympic Games three times. On 7 July 2005, three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus were bombed in a series of terrorist attacks . In 2008, Time named London alongside New York City and Hong Kong as Nylonkong , hailing them as
15548-559: The creation of the London Underground , the world's first urban rail network . The Metropolitan Board of Works oversaw infrastructure expansion in the capital and some surrounding counties; it was abolished in 1889 when the London County Council was created out of county areas surrounding the capital. From the early years of the 20th century onwards, teashops were found on High Streets across London and
15717-524: The cultural regeneration of South Shoreditch" and "a block to economic recovery". Following a lengthy campaign, the then newly formed Transport for London agreed to revert most of the streets to two-way working, a project which was completed in late 2002. In 2005, funding was announced for the East London Line Extension , to extend the existing tube line from Whitechapel tube station bypassing Shoreditch tube station , and to create
15886-713: The driest is 1921, with a total fall of 12.1 inches (308 mm). The average annual precipitation amounts to about 600mm, which is half the annual rainfall of New York City . Despite relatively low annual precipitation, London receives 109.6 rainy days on the 1.0mm threshold annually. London is vulnerable to climate change , and there is concern among hydrological experts that households may run out of water before 2050. Temperature extremes in London range from 40.2 °C (104.4 °F) at Heathrow on 19 July 2022 down to −17.4 °C (0.7 °F) at Northolt on 13 December 1981. Records for atmospheric pressure have been kept at London since 1692. The highest pressure ever reported
16055-465: The end, Henry gave most of the money to supply the war. At the time of their suppression, only some English and Welsh religious houses could trace their origins to Anglo-Saxon or Celtic foundations before the Norman Conquest . The overwhelming majority of the 625 monastic communities dissolved by Henry VIII had developed in the wave of monastic enthusiasm that swept western Christendom in
16224-575: The entire ecclesiastical estate of England and Wales, including the monasteries (see Valor Ecclesiasticus ), for the purpose of assessing the Church's taxable value, through local commissioners who reported in May 1535. At the same time, Henry had Parliament authorise Cromwell to " visit " all the monasteries , including those like the Cistercians previously exempted from episcopal oversight by papal dispensation, to instruct them in their duty to obey
16393-609: The first Muslim mayor of a major Western capital. The mayor's statutory planning strategy is published as the London Plan , which was most recently revised in 2011. The local authorities are the councils of the 32 London boroughs and the City of London Corporation . They are responsible for most local services, such as local planning, schools, libraries, leisure and recreation, social services , local roads and refuse collection. Certain functions, such as waste management , are provided through joint arrangements. In 2009–2010
16562-458: The former Curtain Theatre . The river was known in this area as the Deepditch , Flood Ditch or just The Ditch . Folk etymology holds that the place was originally named "Shore's Ditch", after Jane Shore , the mistress of Edward IV , who is supposed to have died or been buried in a ditch in the area. This legend is commemorated today by a large painting, at Haggerston Branch Library, of
16731-412: The former Shoreditch tube station (closed 2006), 400 metres outside Shoreditch proper, in nearby Bethnal Green , Tower Hamlets , influenced this shift. Its replacement, Shoreditch High Street station , straddles the borough boundary. More significant has been the gentrification of the Shoreditch area since the millennium, leading to a marked increase in the area's prestige, which has led businesses in
16900-547: The former monks and nuns were allowed to reside in the convent buildings for life on state allowance, and many communities survived the Reformation for decades. The last of them was Vreta Abbey , where the last nuns died in 1582, and Vadstena Abbey , from which the last nuns emigrated in 1595, about half a century after the Reduction. In Denmark–Norway , King Frederick I made a similar act in 1528, confiscating 15 of
17069-473: The friars, as mendicants , were supported financially by donations from the faithful, while ideally being self-sufficient and raising extensive urban kitchen gardens. The dissolution of the monasteries took place in the political context of other attacks on the ecclesiastical institutions of Western Catholicism. Many of these were related to the Reformation in Continental Europe . By the end of
17238-525: The grounds that the City of London lies between Shoreditch and the Thames. A variant spelling used by John Stow in 1598, Sewers Ditche , raises the possibility that the name might originally have referred to a drain or watercourse. Certainly the area was once boggy, and the name might bear some relation to the main branch of the Walbrook , which rose in Hoxton, ran along what is now Curtain Road, flowing past
17407-428: The house when they died. In addition, though this scarcely ever happened, the endowments of the house would revert to the founder's heirs if the community failed or dissolved. The status of 'founder' was considered in civil law to be real property , and could consequently be bought and sold, in which case the purchaser would be called the patron . Like any other real property, in intestacy and some other circumstances
17576-682: The houses invited to receive them might refuse to co-operate; and local notables might resist the disruption in their networks of influence. Reforming bishops found they faced opposition when urging the heads of religious houses to enforce their monastic rules, especially those requiring monks and nuns to remain within their cloisters. Monks and nuns in almost all late medieval English religious communities, although theoretically living in religious poverty, were paid an annual cash wage ( peculium ) and received other regular cash rewards and pittances , which softened claustral rules for those who disliked them. Religious superiors met their bishops' pressure with
17745-726: The houses of the Observant Friars were handed over to the mainstream Franciscan order; the friars from the Greenwich house were imprisoned, where many died from ill-treatment. The Carthusians eventually submitted, other than the monks of the London house which was suppressed; some of the monks were executed for high treason in 1535, and others starved to death in prison. Also opposing the Supremacy and consequently imprisoned were Bridgettine monks from Syon Abbey . The Syon nuns, being strictly enclosed, escaped sanction at this stage,
17914-450: The houses of the wealthiest monasteries and convents. Further laws by his successor in the 1530s banned the friars and forced monks and nuns to transfer title to their houses to the Crown, which passed them out to supportive nobles who soon acquired former monastic lands. In Switzerland, too, monasteries were under threat. In 1523, the government of the city-state of Zürich pressured nuns to leave their monasteries and marry and followed up
18083-804: The income of French monasteries was diverted into the hands of the Crown, or of royal supporters, all with the Popes' blessing. Where the French kings led, the Scots kings followed. In Scotland, where the proportion of parish tiends appropriated by higher ecclesiastical institutions exceeded 85 per cent, in 1532 the young James V obtained from the Pope approval to appoint his illegitimate infant sons (of which he eventually acquired nine) as commendators to abbacies in Scotland. Other Scots aristocratic families stuck similar deals, and consequently over £40,000 (Scots) per annum
18252-476: The king, while mere estates were confiscated and run by royal officers, the proceeds going to the king's pocket. Such estates were a valuable source of income for the Crown in its French wars. Most of the larger alien priories became naturalised (for instance Castle Acre Priory ), on payment of heavy fines and bribes, but for around 90 smaller houses, their fates were sealed when Henry V dissolved them by act of Parliament in 1414. The properties were taken over by
18421-694: The line runs almost underneath the station. However, this could not be seriously contemplated before the completion of the Crossrail project, owing to extreme crowding on the Central line during peak hours. London Overground began running 24-hour trains on Friday and Saturday nights between Dalston Junction and New Cross Gate which called at Shoreditch High Street from 15 December 2017. but bypasses Whitechapel and continues on to Shadwell due to ongoing Crossrail construction work for ( Elizabeth line ) until 2019. Two Huguenot workers' houses on Club Row on
18590-640: The location of its original headquarters in a road called Great Scotland Yard in Whitehall. The City of London has its own police force – the City of London Police . First worn by Met police officers in 1863, the custodian helmet has been called a "cultural icon" and a "symbol of British law enforcement". Introduced by the Met in 1929, the blue police telephone box (basis for the TARDIS in Doctor Who )
18759-409: The mayor's budget proposals each year. The GLA has responsibility for the majority of London's transport system through its functional arm Transport for London (TfL), it is responsible for overseeing the city's police and fire services, and also for setting a strategic vision for London on a range of issues. The headquarters of the GLA is City Hall , Newham. The mayor since 2016 has been Sadiq Khan ,
18928-517: The medieval period and occupy the north-west and north-east of Shoreditch respectively; however, their extent has never been formally defined. Although Shoreditch has been consistently defined, perceptions have blurred in recent years; something that became possible after the Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch amalgamated with some of its neighbours to become the southern part of the London Borough of Hackney in 1965. The location of
19097-427: The monasteries continued to attract recruits right up to the end. Only a few monks and nuns lived in conspicuous luxury, but most were comfortably fed and housed by the standards of the time, and few orders demanded ascetic piety or religious observance. Only a minority of houses could now support the twelve or thirteen professed religious usually regarded as the minimum necessary to maintain the full canonical hours of
19266-422: The monasteries in the late 1530s was one of the most revolutionary events in English history. There were nearly 900 religious houses in England, around 260 for monks, 300 for regular canons , 142 nunneries and 183 friaries; some 12,000 people in total, 4,000 monks, 3,000 canons, 3,000 friars and 2,000 nuns. If the adult male population was 500,000, that meant that one adult man in fifty was in religious orders. In
19435-705: The most museums , art galleries, libraries, and cultural venues in the UK, including the British Museum , National Gallery , Natural History Museum , Tate Modern , British Library , and numerous West End theatres. Important sporting events held in London include the FA Cup Final , the Wimbledon Tennis Championships , and the London Marathon . It became the first city to host three Summer Olympic Games upon hosting
19604-675: The most diverse cities in the world. In 1951, the Festival of Britain was held on the South Bank . The Great Smog of 1952 led to the Clean Air Act 1956 , which ended the " pea soup fogs " for which London had been notorious, and had earned it the nickname the "Big Smoke". Starting mainly in the mid-1960s, London became a centre for worldwide youth culture , exemplified by the Swinging London sub-culture associated with
19773-415: The name derives from Old English " scoradīc ", i.e. "shore-ditch", the shore being a riverbank or prominent slope; but there is disagreement as to the identity of the "shore" in question. A suggestion made by Eilert Ekwall in 1936 that the "ditch" might have been one leading to the "shore" of the Thames continues to enjoy widespread currency. Other scholars, however, have challenged this interpretation on
19942-427: The name was derived from Sir John de Soerdich, who was lord of the manor during the reign of Edward III (1327–77). Though now part of Inner London , Shoreditch was previously an extramural suburb of the City of London, centred on Shoreditch Church at the old crossroads where Shoreditch High Street and Kingsland Road are crossed by Old Street and Hackney Road . Shoreditch High Street and Kingsland Road are
20111-623: The next year by dissolving all monasteries in its territory, under the pretext of using their revenues to fund education and help the poor. The city of Basel followed suit in 1529, and Geneva adopted the same policy in 1530. An attempt was also made in 1530 to dissolve the famous Abbey of St. Gall , which was a state of the Holy Roman Empire in its own right, but this failed, and St. Gall survived until 1798. In France and Scotland, by contrast, royal action to seize monastic income proceeded along entirely different lines. In both countries,
20280-472: The number of church benefices that could in the future be held by one man. These Acts were meant to demonstrate that royal jurisdiction over the Church would ensure progress in "religious reformation" where papal authority had been insufficient. The monasteries were next in line. J. J. Scarisbrick remarked in his biography of Henry VIII: Suffice it to say that English monasticism was a huge and urgent problem; that radical action, though of precisely what kind
20449-467: The old Roman city. By about 680 the city had become a major port again, but there is little evidence of large-scale production. From the 820s repeated Viking assaults brought decline. Three are recorded; those in 851 and 886 succeeded, while the last, in 994, was rebuffed. The Vikings applied Danelaw over much of eastern and northern England, its boundary running roughly from London to Chester as an area of political and geographical control imposed by
20618-435: The personal compliance of the abbess being taken as sufficient for the government's purposes. G. W. O. Woodward concluded that: All but a very few took it without demur. They were, after all, Englishmen, and shared the common prejudice of their contemporaries against the pretensions of foreign Italian prelates. In 1534, Cromwell undertook, on behalf of the King, an inventory of the endowments, liabilities and income of
20787-478: The practice of nominating abbacies in commendam had become widespread. Since the 12th century, it had become universal in Western Europe for the household expenses of abbots and conventual priors to be separated, typically appropriating more than half the house's income. With papal approval, these funds might be diverted on a vacancy to support a non-monastic ecclesiastic, commonly a bishop or member of
20956-481: The previous century, resulted in their being singled out for royal favour, in particular with houses benefitting from endowments confiscated by the Crown from the suppressed alien priories. Donations and legacies had tended to go instead towards parish churches, university colleges, grammar schools and collegiate churches, which suggests greater public approbation. Levels of monastic debt were increasing, and average numbers of professed religious were falling, although
21125-490: The principal city of the Roman province of Britannia in 100. At its height in the 2nd century, Roman London had a population of about 60,000. With the early 5th-century collapse of Roman rule, the walled city of Londinium was effectively abandoned, although Roman civilisation continued around St Martin-in-the-Fields until about 450. From about 500, an Anglo-Saxon settlement known as Lundenwic developed slightly west of
21294-775: The property of the houses to have reverted to the Crown as founder. The conventional wisdom of the time was that the proper daily observance of the Divine Office of prayer required a minimum of twelve professed religious, but by the 1530s, few communities in England could provide this. Most observers were in agreement that a systematic reform of the English church must involve the drastic concentration of monks and nuns into fewer, larger houses, potentially making monastic income available for more productive religious, educational and social purposes. This apparent consensus often faced strong resistance in practice. Members of religious houses proposed for dissolution might resist relocation;
21463-449: The property with which a house had been endowed by its founder were to be confiscated or surrendered, then the house ceased to exist, whether its members continued in the religious life or not. The founder and their heirs had a legally enforceable interest in certain aspects of the house; their nomination was required at the election of an abbot or prior, they could claim hospitality within the house when needed, and they could be buried within
21632-552: The regular income of the Crown, much former monastic property was sold off to fund Henry's military campaigns in the 1540s. Henry did this under the Act of Supremacy , passed by Parliament in 1534, which made him Supreme Head of the Church in England . He had broken from Rome's papal authority the previous year. The monasteries were dissolved by two Acts of Parliament, those being the First Suppression Act in 1535 and
21801-693: The religious houses of England and Wales—with the notable exceptions of those of the Carthusians , the Observant Franciscans , and the Bridgettine nuns and monks—had long ceased to play a leading role in the spiritual life of the country. Other than in these three orders, observance of strict monastic rules was partial at best. The exceptional spiritual discipline of the Carthusian, Observant Franciscan and Bridgettine orders had, over
21970-517: The resources, and it was rapidly developing the dignity and the political self-consciousness appropriate to a national capital ." After winning the Battle of Hastings , William, Duke of Normandy was crowned King of England in newly completed Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. William built the Tower of London , the first of many such in England rebuilt in stone in the south-eastern corner of
22139-407: The response that the cloistered ideal was only acceptable to a tiny minority of regular clergy, and that any attempt to enforce their order's stricter rules could be overturned in counter-actions in the secular courts, if aggrieved monks and nuns obtained a writ of praemunire . The King actively supported Wolsey, Fisher and Richard Foxe in their programmes of monastic reform; but even so, progress
22308-641: The rest of Britain, with Lyons , who opened the first of their chain of teashops in Piccadilly in 1894, leading the way. The tearooms, such as the Criterion in Piccadilly, became a popular meeting place for women from the suffrage movement. The city was the target of many attacks during the suffragette bombing and arson campaign , between 1912 and 1914, which saw historic landmarks such as Westminster Abbey and St Paul's Cathedral bombed. London
22477-580: The rest of the Church in acceding to the Royal Supremacy; and in swearing to uphold the validity of the King's divorce and remarriage. Opposition was concentrated in the houses of Carthusian monks, Observant Franciscan friars and Bridgettine monks and nuns. Great efforts were made to cajole, bribe, trick and threaten these houses into formal compliance, with those religious who continued in their resistance being liable to imprisonment until they submitted or if they persisted, to execution for treason. All
22646-401: The royal treasury came to rest in the Tower . While the City of Westminster developed into a true governmental capital, its distinct neighbour, the City of London , remained England's largest city and principal commercial centre and flourished under its own unique administration, the Corporation of London . In 1100, its population was some 18,000; by 1300 it had grown to nearly 100,000. With
22815-602: The same boundaries, sometimes with minor rationalisations. The Borough's areas of modern Shoreditch, Hoxton and Haggerston were administered from Shoreditch Town Hall , which can still be seen on Old Street. It has been restored and is now run by the Shoreditch Town Hall Trust. Holy Trinity, Shoreditch in the Old Nichol was for ecclesiastical purposes in Shoreditch from 1866 but was administratively part of Bethnal Green . London London
22984-686: The same year voted that henceforth every member of the regular clergy should be free to renounce their vows, resign their offices, and marry. At Luther's home monastery in Wittenberg all the friars, save one, did so. News spread among Protestant-minded rulers across Europe, and some, particularly in Scandinavia, moved very quickly. In the Riksdag of Västerås in 1527, initiating the Reformation in Sweden , King Gustav Vasa secured an edict of
23153-546: The sea. London is the seat of the Government of the United Kingdom . Many government departments, as well as the prime minister's residence at 10 Downing Street , are based close to the Palace of Westminster , particularly along Whitehall . There are 75 members of Parliament (MPs) from London; As of June 2024 , 59 are from the Labour Party , 9 are Conservatives , 6 are Liberal Democrats and one constituency
23322-521: The second "dot-com" boom, both the area and Old Street have become popular with London-based web technology companies who base their head offices around the East London Tech City district. These include Last.fm , Dopplr , Songkick , SocialGO and 7digital . These companies have tended to gravitate towards Old Street Roundabout , giving rise to the term "Silicon Roundabout" to describe the area, as used by Prime Minister David Cameron in
23491-676: The secular world. Extensive monastic complexes dominated English towns of any size, but most were less than half full. From 1534 onwards, Cromwell and King Henry wanted to redirect ecclesiastical income to the Crown—they justified this by contending that they were reclaiming what was theirs. Renaissance princes throughout Europe were facing severe financial difficulties due to sharply rising expenditures, especially to pay for armies, ships and fortifications. Many had already resorted to plundering monastic wealth. Protestant princes would justify this by claiming divine authority; Catholic princes would obtain
23660-424: The start of 2018 to mid April 2018. Funding cuts to police in London are likely to have contributed to this, though other factors are involved. However, homicide figures fell in 2022 with 109 recorded for the year, and the murder rate in London is much lower than other major cities around the world. London, also known as Greater London , is one of nine regions of England and the top subdivision covering most of
23829-464: The station operational. Tower Hamlets Council made proposals to transfer the Boundary Estate to a housing association and upgrade the accommodation in 2006. A full refurbishment of one of the blocks, Iffley House was carried out by Sprunt Architects to demonstrate how this might be achieved but the proposal was rejected by a ballot of tenants in November of that year. More recently, during
23998-650: The status of 'founder' would revert to the Crown—a procedure that many houses actively sought, as it might be advantageous in their legal dealings in the King's courts. The founders of the alien priories had been foreign monasteries refusing allegiance to the English Crown. These property rights were therefore automatically forfeited to the Crown when their English dependencies were dissolved, but their example prompted questions as to what action might be taken should English houses cease to exist. Much would depend on who, at
24167-753: The theatres in the 1640s. The ban on theatre was lifted during the Restoration in 1660, and London's oldest operating theatre, Drury Lane , opened in 1663 in what is now the West End theatre district. By the end of the Tudor period in 1603, London was still compact. There was an assassination attempt on James I in Westminster, in the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605. In 1637, the government of Charles I attempted to reform administration in
24336-504: The time Henry VIII turned to monastery reform, royal action to suppress religious houses had a history of more than 200 years. The first case was that of the so-called ' alien priories '. As a result of the Norman Conquest , some French religious orders held substantial property through their daughter monasteries in England. Some of these were granges , agricultural estates with a single foreign monk in residence to supervise; others were rich foundations in their own right (e.g., Lewes Priory
24505-401: The time the house ended, held the status of founder or patron; as with other such disputes in real property, the standard procedure was to empanel a jury to decide between disputing claimants. In practice, the Crown claimed the status of 'founder' in all such cases that occurred. Consequently, when a monastic community failed (e.g., through the death of most of its members, or through insolvency),
24674-479: The unique governmental status of the City . In the English Civil War , the majority of Londoners supported the Parliamentary cause. After an initial advance by the Royalists in 1642, culminating in the battles of Brentford and Turnham Green , London was surrounded by a defensive perimeter wall known as the Lines of Communication . The lines were built by up to 20,000 people, and were completed in under two months. The fortifications failed their only test when
24843-533: The value of monastic life and universally dismissive of relics and miraculous tokens. By comparison with the valuation commissions, the timetable for these monastic visitations was tight, with some houses missed altogether, and inquiries appear to have concentrated on gross faults and laxity; consequently, where the reports of misbehaviour can be checked against other sources, they commonly appear to have been both rushed and greatly exaggerated, often recalling events from years before. The visitors interviewed each member of
25012-453: The widespread decline of the fervent monastic vocation, and that in every country the monks possessed too much of wealth and of the sources of production both for their own well-being and for the material good of the economy. Pilgrimages to monastic shrines continued until forcibly suppressed in England in 1538 by order of Henry VIII, but the dissolution resulted in few modifications to England's parish churches. The English religious reforms of
25181-476: The world's three most influential global cities . In January 2015, Greater London's population was estimated to be 8.63 million, its highest since 1939. During the Brexit referendum in 2016, the UK as a whole decided to leave the European Union , but most London constituencies voted for remaining. However, Britain's exit from the EU in early 2020 only marginally weakened London's position as an international financial centre. The administration of London
25350-465: Was bombed by the Germans in the First World War , and during the Second World War , the Blitz and other bombings by the German Luftwaffe killed over 30,000 Londoners, destroying large tracts of housing and other buildings across the city. The tomb of the Unknown Warrior , an unidentified member of the British armed forces killed during the First World War, was buried in Westminster Abbey on 11 November 1920. The Cenotaph , located in Whitehall ,
25519-413: Was a centre of entertainment to rival the West End and had many theatres and music halls : None of these places of entertainment survives today. Music hall was revived for a brief time in Curtain Road by the temporary home of the Brick Lane Music Hall . This too has now moved on. A number of playbills and posters from these music halls survive in the collections of both the Bishopsgate Institute and
25688-410: Was a daughter of Cluny and answered to the abbot of the French house). Owing to frequent wars between England and France in the late Middle Ages , successive English governments objected to money going overseas to France. They also objected to foreign prelates having jurisdiction over English monasteries. After 1378, French monasteries (and alien priories dependent on them) maintained allegiance to
25857-586: Was advised in this action by the staunch traditionalist John Fisher , Bishop of Rochester . In 1522, Fisher himself dissolved the women's monasteries of Bromhall and Higham to aid St John's College, Cambridge . That same year, Cardinal Wolsey dissolved St Frideswide's Priory (now Oxford Cathedral ) to form the basis of his Christ Church, Oxford ; in 1524, he secured a papal bull to dissolve 20 other monasteries to provide an endowment for his new college. The remaining friars, monks and nuns were absorbed into other houses of their respective orders. Juries found
26026-416: Was another matter, was both necessary and inevitable, and that a purge of the religious orders was probably regarded as the most obvious task of the new regime—as the first function of a Supreme Head empowered by statute "to visit, extirp and redress". The stories of monastic impropriety, vice, and excess that were to be collected by Thomas Cromwell 's visitors to the monasteries may have been exaggerated but
26195-446: Was attached to 118th Brigade , part of the 39th Division . The battalion was involved in many actions on the Western Front in 1916–18. Syd's coffee stall was established in Calvert Avenue in 1919 and operated continuously until 2019. In the 1930s, Shoreditch, Holy Trinity parish united with that of St Leonard. Shoreditch was heavily bombed during the Second World War , with around 495 of its civilian residents killed. The area
26364-407: Was based for many centuries on the Ancient Parish of Shoreditch (St Leonard's) , part of the county of Middlesex . Parishes in Middlesex were grouped into Hundreds , with Shoreditch part of Ossulstone Hundred. Rapid Population growth around London saw the Hundred split into several 'Divisions' during the 1600s, with Shoreditch part of the Tower Division (aka Tower Hamlets) . The Tower Division
26533-455: Was common. The subjects of these dissolutions were usually small, poor, and indebted Benedictine or Augustinian communities (especially those of women) with few powerful friends; the great abbeys and orders exempt from diocesan supervision such as the Cistercians were unaffected. The resources were transferred often to Oxford University and Cambridge University colleges: instances of this include John Alcock , Bishop of Ely dissolving
26702-599: Was diverted from monasteries into the royal coffers. It is inconceivable that these moves went unnoticed by the English government and particularly by Thomas Cromwell , who had been employed by Wolsey in his monastic suppressions, and who would become Henry VIII's King's Secretary . Henry appears to have been much more influenced by the opinions on monasticism of the humanists Desiderius Erasmus and Thomas More , especially as found in Erasmus's work In Praise of Folly (1511) and More's Utopia (1516). Erasmus and More promoted ecclesiastical reform while remaining faithful to
26871-409: Was exacerbated by the extensive devastation of the housing stock in the Blitz during the Second World War , and by insensitive redevelopment in the post-war period. A south-west to north-east tube line called the Chelsea-Hackney line was proposed in 1970 by the then London Transport Board 's London Rail Study as the next project after the completion of the Victoria line and the Fleet line (now
27040-435: Was hit by at least 279 high explosive bombs, 6 parachute mines 7 V-1 'doodlebugs' , 2 V-2 rockets and many thousands of 1 kg incendiary devices. The destruction of housing and industry caused by the two V-2s contributed to the opportunity to create Shoreditch Park and Haggerston Park . Post-war, Shoreditch declined in conditions, as did both textile and furniture industries with competition elsewhere. This situation
27209-429: Was noteworthy in that the men of the area owed military service to the Tower of London – and had done even before the creation of the Division – an arrangement which continued until 1899. The Ancient Parishes provided a framework for both civil (administrative) and ecclesiastical (church) functions, but during the nineteenth century there was a divergence into distinct civil and ecclesiastical parish systems. In London
27378-437: Was once a common sight throughout London and regional cities in the UK. The British Transport Police are responsible for police services on National Rail , London Underground , Docklands Light Railway and Tramlink services. The Ministry of Defence Police is a special police force in London, which does not generally become involved with policing the general public. The UK's domestic counter-intelligence service ( MI5 )
27547-554: Was outside the jurisdiction of the somewhat puritanical City fathers. Even so, they drew the wrath of contemporary moralists, as did the local "base tenements and houses of unlawful and disorderly resort" and the "great number of dissolute, loose, and insolent people harboured in such and the like noisome and disorderly houses, as namely poor cottages, and habitations of beggars and people without trade, stables, inns, alehouses, taverns, garden-houses converted to dwellings, ordinaries, dicing houses, bowling alleys, and brothel houses". During
27716-472: Was painfully slow, especially where religious orders had been exempted from episcopal oversight by papal authority. It was also never certain that juries would find in favour of the Crown in disposing of the property of dissolved houses; any action that impinged on monasteries with substantial assets might be expected to be contested by a range of influential claimants. In 1532, the priory of Christchurch Aldgate , facing financial and legal difficulties, petitioned
27885-442: Was performed within "this wooden O" and an early version of Hamlet was also first staged in Shoreditch. Shakespeare's Company moved the timbers of "The Theatre" to Southwark at the expiration of the lease in 1599, in order to construct the Globe . The Curtain continued performing plays in Shoreditch until at least 1627. The suburb of Shoreditch was attractive as a location for these early theatres because, like Southwark , it
28054-490: Was reported that the internet retailer Amazon.com was close to signing a lease to move its UK headquarters there. The project had been on hold since January 2012, when the anchor tenant, the law firm CMS Cameron McKenna pulled out. Soon after, the developer Hammerson sold its interest in the scheme to Brookfield . There has been some consideration of creating an interchange with the Central line between Liverpool Street and Bethnal Green at Shoreditch High Street, where
28223-525: Was seen as much more important and vital than the monastic focus on contemplation, prayer and performance of the daily office. Erasmus had made a threefold criticism of the monks and nuns of his day, saying that: Summarising the state of monastic life across Western Europe, David Knowles said, The verdict of unprejudiced historians at the present day would probably be—abstracting from all ideological considerations for or against monasticism—that there were far too many religious houses in existence in view of
28392-406: Was supervised by polymath Robert Hooke . In 1710, Christopher Wren 's masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral , was completed, replacing its medieval predecessor that burned in the Great Fire of 1666. The dome of St Paul's dominated the London skyline for centuries, inspiring the artworks and writing of William Blake , with his 1789 poem " Holy Thursday " referring to 'the high dome of Pauls'. During
28561-458: Was unveiled on the same day, and is the focal point for the National Service of Remembrance held annually on Remembrance Sunday , the closest Sunday to 11 November. The 1948 Summer Olympics were held at the original Wembley Stadium , while London was still recovering from the war. From the 1940s, London became home to many immigrants, primarily from Commonwealth countries such as Jamaica, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, making London one of
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