Cripplegate was one of the principal northern gateways through the Roman and later medieval wall of Londinium, originating as the north gate of the Cripplegate fort built around AD 120. When the city wall was constructed c. AD 200, it incorporated the fort's northern wall and gate, leaving Cripplegate as a functioning entrance into the city until its demolition in 1760.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
The gate provided access from Londinium northwards toward Ermine Street and the suburban cemeteries beyond the wall, and its survival reflects how the early 2nd-century fort fundamentally shaped the layout of London's defensive circuit and street grid. Its position also defined the line of Wood Street, one of the principal Roman north-south thoroughfares preserved into the modern City.
Excavations by W.F. Grimes in the late 1940s and 1950s following Blitz clearance revealed the fort's twin-portal gate structure with flanking guard chambers and ragstone walling, alongside sections of the thickened city wall added later. Subsequent investigations have exposed further stretches of the fort and city wall nearby, with surviving masonry visible in the St Alphage Garden and Noble Street sections.
Cripplegate was one of the principal northern gateways through the Roman and later medieval wall of Londinium, originating as the north gate of the Cripplegate fort built around AD 120. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a site site from the Roman period in Britain.
London Wall: site of the Roman and medieval gateway of Cripple Gate is classified as a Roman site — a civilian site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including London Wall: section of Roman and medieval wall at St Alphage Garden, incorporating remains of St Alphage's Church (0.1 km), London Wall: section of Roman and medieval wall and bastions, west and north of Monkwell Square (0.1 km), London Wall: the west gate of Cripplegate fort and a section of Roman wall in London Wall underground car park, adjacent to Noble Street (0.2 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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Research the area around London Wall: site of the Roman and medieval gateway of Cripple Gate