Shoreditch
Shoreditch is a place in the London Borough of Hackney.
Shoreditch is 2.3 miles (3.7 km) north east of Charing Cross and is located at the point where five postcode areas converge. Before 1965 it was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch.
It was the site of an Augustinian priory in the 12th Century until its dissolution in 1539. In 1576 the first playhouse (theatre) in England was opened, and in 1577 The Curtain theatre was opened in the middle of what is Curtain Road today.
During the 17th Century wealthy traders and Huguenot silk weavers moved to the area, establishing a textile industry centered to the South around Spitalfields Market. The area declined along with the textile industry and from the end of the 19th Century to the 1960s, Shoreditch was a by-word for crime, prostitution and poverty.
Today Shoreditch is a busy and popular district, noted for its large number of galleries, bars, media businesses and an urban golf club (although the prostitution and, to a lesser degree, the textile industry still remain).
