Shoreditch
From Free net encyclopedia
Shoreditch is a place in the London Borough of Hackney. It is a built-up district located 2.3 miles (3.7 km) north east of Charing Cross and is situated at the point where five postal districts converge. Image:Shoreditch town hall3.jpg From 1899 until 1965 it was the core district of the Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch, the town hall of which can still be seen on Old Street. The Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch was made up of three main districts in all: Shoreditch, Hoxton and Haggerston. The whole Metropolitan Borough was incorporated into the much larger London Borough of Hackney in 1965.
Shoreditch has become something of a moveable feast in the modern world. It is generally conflated with nearby Hoxton, leading to constructions such as 'Shoho' or 'Hoxditch'. Postwar naming decisions have not helped - for example Shoreditch Park was established, postwar, in Hoxton west of the market, while Haggerston Park occupies the site of the old Shoreditch gasworks.
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History
An old form of the name is "Soersditch", and the origin is lost, though early tradition connects it with Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward IV.
It was the site of an Augustinian priory in the 12th Century until its dissolution in 1539. In 1576, the first playhouse in England, known as The Theatre, was opened, and in 1577 the Curtain Theatre was opened in the middle of what is Curtain Road today.
During the 17th century, wealthy traders and Huguenot silk weavers moved to the area, establishing a textile industry centered to the South around Spitalfields Market. The area declined along with the textile industry and from the end of the 19th Century to the 1960s, Shoreditch was a byword for crime, prostitution and poverty.
Today
Today Shoreditch is undergoing a social transformation. A former citadel of the working and under-classes, it is now being colonised by Boho yuppies and the artistic set who have turned former furniture warehouses into loft apartments and made Hoxton Square the centre of contemporary bohemia. Curtain Road and Old Street are notable for their clubs and pubs which cater for the Shoreditch Twat. Art galleries, bars, restaurants, media businesses and an urban golf club are further features of this transformation. To the north and east, however urban dereliction reigns and a predatory underclass continues the traditions of criminality pursued by their ancestors. Other traditions of working class entertainment survive on Shoreditch High Street where the music halls of yesteryear have been replaced by the greatest concentration of strip pubs in London. And further south on Commercial Street the oldest profession of all still plies its trade...
Transport
Nearest places
Image:Shoreditch st leonards 2.jpg Image:Shoreditch kingsland road bridge 1.jpg In 2005 funding was announced for the East London Line Extension which would extend the existing line from Whitechapel tube station bypassing Shoreditch tube station and creating a new station titled Shoreditch High Street at the site of the old Bishopsgate Goods Yards which were demolished in 2004. The current London Underground station is due to close permanently in June 2006 as a result of the extension.
Nearest tube stations
See also
References
- This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain.
