Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
Minories (
/ˈmɪnəriːz/, not /ˈmaɪnəriːz/) is the name of both an area and a street in the City of London, close to the Tower of London.
The street Minories runs north-south, with traffic flowing one-way, between Aldgate and Tower Hill Underground stations. The border between the City and Tower Hamlets ran haphazardly between Minories and nearby Mansell Street, until boundary changes in 1994 resulted in the present-day border along Mansell Street, resulting in Minories falling entirely within the City of London.
Its name is derived from the abbey of the Minoresses of St. Mary of the Order of St. Clare, founded in 1294, which stood on the site; a "minoress" was a nun. The area was a papal peculiar outside the jurisdiction of the English bishops. The abbey was dissolved in 1539, the property passing to the Crown. The chapel of the former abbey was used as the parish church of Holy Trinity, Minories; and other buildings became an armoury and later workhouse. In 1686, the area became part of the Liberties of the Tower of London.
The Minories area traditionally hosted a large Jewish community.[1]
It gave its name to Minories railway station, built in 1840 as a part of the London and Blackwall Railway – a 3.5-mile (5.6 km) cable railway. The site is now occupied by a Docklands Light Railway station called Tower Gateway, opened in 1989 as the western terminus of the system. The system was extended in 1991 to Bank leaving this as an 'alternate terminus'; it is now open again following platform extension works in 2009.
Opposite the station are some of the buildings of the City Campus of London Metropolitan University.
[edit] References
- Pennant, Thomas (1816). Some Account of London. London: J Faulder (digital edition from New York Public Library, 2007). pp. 372. http://books.google.com/books?id=w28BAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA372&dq=minories.
- Thornbury, Walter (1878). Old and New London: Volume 2. London: Cassel (digital edition from University of London & History of Parliament Trust, 2007). pp. 245–250. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45094&strquery=minories.
Coordinates: 51°30′39″N 0°04′30″W / 51.5108°N 0.0751°W / 51.5108; -0.0751
Annotations
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The Minories lies east of Tower Hill and runs north-to-south near the right side of this segment of the 1742 map. http://www.motco.com/map/81002/SeriesSearchPlatesFulla.asp?mode=query&title=Minories&artist=384&other=322&x=11&y=11
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The Minerys (or Minories) …
From Stow’s Survey of London (Portsoken Ward):
“From the west part of this Tower hill, towards Aldgate, being a long continual street, amongst other smaller buildings in that row, there was sometime an abbey of nuns of the order of St. Clare, called the Minories, founded by Edmond, Earl of Lancaster, Leycester, and Darbie, brother to King Edward I, in the year 1293; the length of which abbey contained fifteen perches and seven feet, near unto the king’s street or highway, etc., as appeareth by a deed, dated 1303.
“A plague of pestilence being in this city, in the year 1515, there died in this house of nuns professed to the number of twenty-seven, besides other lay people, servants in their house. This house … was surrendered by Dame Elizabeth Salvage, the last abbess there, unto King Henry VIII in the 30th of his reign, the year of Christ 1539.
“In place of this house of nuns is now built divers fair and large storehouses for armour and habiliments of war, with divers workhouses, serving to the same purpose: there is a small parish church for inhabitants of the close, called St. Trinities.”