For most of its length from the north, this street marks the boundary between the City of London and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

However, the southernmost part is entirely in Tower Hamlets.

Mansell Street was named after a relative of William Leman, whose great-uncle, John Leman had bought Goodman's Fields earlier in the seventeenth century.

These new streets were developed in the late seventeenth century while Goodman's Fields was used as a tenterground.

[3] It consists of 194 homes and in 2019 there were plans for its redevelopment.