Editing Cripplegate (section)

==The gate==
[[File:Cripplegate Hollar.PNG|150px|thumb|left|An illustration of the gate, c. 1650.]]
[[File:Cripplegate plaque.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Cripplegate plaque]]
The origins of the gate's name are unclear.<ref>{{cite book|last=Harben|first=Henry|title=A Dictionary of London|year=1918|location=London|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63093}}</ref> One theory, bolstered by a mentioning of the gate in the fourth law code of [[Æthelred the Unready]] and a charter of [[William the Conqueror]] from 1068 under the name "Crepelgate",<ref>'Saxon London', by [[Alan Vince]], 1990, p43</ref> is that it takes its name from the Anglo-Saxon word ''crepel'', meaning a covered or underground passageway.

Another unsubstantiated theory suggests it is named after the [[cripple]]s who used to beg there.<ref>'Cripplegate, one of the 26 Wards of the City of London' [[Sir John Baddeley, 1st Baronet|Baddesley, J.J]] p91: London; Blades, East & Blades; 1921</ref>  The name of the nearby medieval church of [[St Giles-without-Cripplegate]] lends credence to this suggestion as [[Saint Giles]] is the patron saint of cripples and lepers.

===History of the gate===
It was initially the northern gate to the [[Roman Empire|Roman]] [[London Wall|city walls]], built around AD 120 or 150, <ref>{{cite web |title=London Wall: the west gate of Cripplegate fort and a section of Roman wall in London Wall underground car park, adjacent to Noble Street |url=https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1018889 |access-date=4 March 2021 |website=historicengland.org.uk}}</ref> eighty years before the rest of the wall was completed. It appeared to have been used as part of the Roman city walls until at least the 10th-11th centuries. Cripplegate was rebuilt during the 1490s and was unhinged and fortified with a [[portcullis]] after [[Charles II of England|Charles II]] became king in 1660. It was eventually demolished in 1760; much of Cripplegate was gone by the 19th century and only small fragments of it survive today.