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THE HISTORY OF SHOREDITCH

A brief history of Shoreditch

Amazingly, considering how large London is now, Shoreditch was at one time a town outside the city walls, a place where masters of the city kept country estates! It is thought that the name Shoreditch may have come from the Saxon word “ Sewerditch” which was a dirty stream that ran nearby. Shoreditch was largely Monastic land, with several wealthy nunneries and Priories in the area, and stayed that way until the mid sixteenth century.

By the end of the sixteenth century, the first two theatres to be built in London had been built in Shoreditch. At the time theatres were not allowed to be built inside the city walls, so they were set up in Shoreditch. William Shakespeare lived in Bishopsgate and may well have debuted plays here, and the playwright Ben Johnson killed an actor in a duel in the fields of Shoreditch. Even then, Shoreditch and its neighbor Hoxton, had gained a reputation as places to come for entertainment.

By the industrial revolution Shoreditch had changed greatly. Gone were the lush rural areas, which had been replaced by building developments filled with people working in factories and sweatshops. The Huguenot refugees that came to London built weaving factories and spurred the development further, with merchants taking advantage of the cheap labour of East London. All of this contributed to the conversion of former houses into factories and also for new premises to be built to accommodate the new technologies of the era.

All of this development contributed to the massive overcrowding that Shoreditch was experiencing by the mid nineteenth century. Growing at a faster rate than any other London area, with more and more warehouses and workshops opening, Shoreditch was overcrowded and running out of room. This contributed to Shoreditch’s descent into a slum afflicted by massive poverty. Shoreditch remained an unhealthy and dangerous place to live well into the twentieth century and the population that had once risen inexorably, was now falling, as people escaped the poor quality of life there.

The Second World War destroyed much of the old east end, and Shoreditch was no different. The area became dilapidated and a haven for gangs and prostitution. The area was stagnant throughout the 70’s and 80’s, and huge parts of it was dominated by warehouses and old Victorian buildings lying dormant and empty. In the 90’s, artists, looking for cheap rent, were attracted by the huge spaces and the urban outlook and began to revitalise the area, which in turn generated interest from young professionals, looking for ‘authentic’ loft apartments. The area became cool, with bars and clubs popping up everywhere and continual redevelopment of empty buildings that had once fueled the industrial revolution in London.