Shoreditch (parish)

Shoreditch (St Leonard) was an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex.

The civil parish was within the Ossulstone hundred and, from the 17th century, the Tower division.

Under the Metropolis Management Act 1855 any parish that exceeded 2,000 ratepayers was to be divided into wards; as such the incorporated vestry of St Leonard Shoreditch was divided into eight wards (electing vestrymen): No.

Saint Leonard's new, three-story workhouse (with infirmary and apothecary) was opened in 1777, thanks to a levy tax passed by an Act of Parliament in 1774.

The Shoreditch Vestry built this workhouse on the Parish Poor Trustees' "Land of Promise," on Kingsland Road.

A map showing the wards of Shoreditch Metropolitan Borough as they appeared in 1916.
The Hoxton Street façade of the former Shoreditch workhouse. The site stretches to Kingsland Road, where many of the buildings remain as Saint Leonard's hospital.
St Leonard's parish church. (January 2006)