This neighbourhood is made up of a portion of Bishopsgate – the road to the east of Liverpool Street Station, and Devonshire Square – a set of converted Georgian warehouses which currently houses offices, shops, homes, as well as Coventry University’s London’s campus. 135 Bishopsgate exemplifies the grandiose architecture of the area. Forming the outermost part of the renowned Broadgate Estate, this emerald complex was designed by Bruce Graham and today it houses offices, together with cafes and shops on ground level. A good portion of the Edwardian architecture is preserved and can be seen walking down New Street which runs parallel to Devonshire Row just south of it. The latter is a narrow pedestrian alleyway which boasts The Bull and Hide pub – traditional yet different, this independent boozer also has a rich history as well as a few spaces to rest one’s head.

The earliest development of the site is attributed to Jasper Fisher in the sixteenth century. An entrant to the nobility, Fisher soon ran into debts and hence the estate which he had developed became branded “Fisher’s Folly”. The area would remain in the form of mansion and adjoining gardens until Nicholas Barbon would purchase the land in the late sixteenth century. Barbon was an economist and has been credited as one of the earliest advocates of the free market. Together with John Asgil, Barbon founded the first bank to issue mortgages. A fervent developer, Barbon capitalised on his growing profits to build up post-1666 London between the border of the City and Westminster. This give rise to The Strand and Bloomsbury. It was during this period that the aforementioned Bull and Hide first came about as the Bull Tavern. One hundred years later, the prominent East India Company bought what is now Devonshire Square in order to build warehouses for storing the fruits of its trade in Southeast Asia. The buildings would store tea, textiles, chinaware and much more. Today, the Bengal Warehouse bar and grill is a remnant of those eighteenth-century enterprises. Halfway through the twentieth century, Devonshire Square underwent extensive regeneration, although most of the facades retained their Edwardian appearance.

Jasper Fisher (1528-1579), mentioned in the previous section, was a parliamentarian whose civic importance grew after the coup d’état against Edward Seymour. Fisher gained his education at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, where he made a name for himself as a dramatist. After serving for a period of time as Royal Goldsmith, Fisher began acquiring land. His fortunes grew, although not enough for him to afford the grand property he had built in this part of east London. Fisher died of ill health, leaving his property to his wife.

One of the subsequent occupants of Fishers Folly, Edward de Vere is the subject of the eternal debate about the true authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. De Vere was a seventeenth century Earl of Oxford who graduated from Cambridge at just fourteen. Scholars have identified striking similarities between De Vere’s writing style in his letters and that of Shakespeare’s work. Moreover, the two would have lived in close proximity from each other, the great playwright having resided in neighbouring Shoreditch.

One can naturally expect masses of people to pass through the area during peak travel times. Much of the commotion at the moment could be put down to developments rapidly underway (see next section).

Nearby Liverpool Street station has recently expanded, adding the Elizabeth line to its already expansive repertoire of transport links. Passengers are now just six minutes from Canary Wharf in the east and are directly connected to Heathrow and the Thames Valley commuter belt to the west. Further work is scheduled for the station in the coming years, with 1.5 billion set to be spent on a regeneration of the grade-II listed building. These infrastructure improvements will complement the persistent commercial development that has characterised much of this area’s recent history. The glass-fronted Premier Place development at two Devonshire square was completed in 2020 and is just one such example.