Place Name
After a new gate built here in first millennium. John Stow says that it was “latelier built than the rest”. There are two suggestions about the origins of the gate, the first that it was a replacement for the original Roman gates that would have been here, put up by either Henry I or Stephen, this being some centuries after Alfred the Great had restored the City. The second is that it was a new – or at least reconfigured – entrance to the medieval city to accommodate the increased traffic which was a result of the construction of the original St Paul’s Cathedral in 1087. The eastern part of this street was formerly Blow Bladder Street or Bladder Street, after the bladder selling trade here. The bladders being used for food and pig bladders were inflated with air and used as primitive footballs.
