13th- and early 17th-century reconstructions, was breached on only two occasions. The first occurred during the Great Rising in the summer of 1381 when thousands of insurgents from the surrounding region, assisted by sympathisers within and without, entered the City through Aldgate. The second breach was during the Siege of London, in the spring of 1471, when troops led by the Bastard of Fauconberg forced open the gate. According to Chaucer scholar Paul Strohm, the assault was only successful "by the design of [Aldgate’s] defenders": after a number of Fauconberg's men were allowed to gain entry, the gate's "portcullis was lowered to trap them inside, where they were taken and slain". While he was a customs official, from 1374 until 1386, Geoffrey Chaucer occupied apartments above the gate, where he wrote some of his poems. London's aldermen had first conceived of renting unneeded space over the City gates earlier in the century. Although keenly sought after due to their location, the rooms "were built for military occupancy and remained rough-hewn [and] nonprivate". Chaucer likely occupied the single tower on the south end of the gate. A 1585 sketch of Aldgate's north tower reveals an interior room of approximately ; its southern sibling probably had similar dimensions. The space would have been "cramped, cold, rudimentary in its sanitary arrangements, and (perhaps most seriously in the case of a writer) ill lit, even at midday". In his Survey of London (1598), John Stow wrote that Aldgate "hath had two pair of gates, though now but one; the hooks remaineth yet. Also there hath been two portcullisses; the one of them remaineth, the other wanteth, but the place of letting down is manifest". Aldgate locality Geography Aldgate High Street begins at Aldgate Pump, on the junction of Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street. The informal district around Aldgate High Street extends from the pump, along the of Aldgate High Street (the first few metres of which is named more simply Aldgate) and arguably a further along Whitechapel High Street to Aldgate East tube station. This of street includes a tiny part of the intramural Aldgate Ward, a part of the extramural Portsoken Ward and part of the Whitechapel district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The road junction at Aldgate East station (the junction of Whitechapel High Street, Commercial Street and Leman Street) is still occasionally referred to as "Gardiners' Corner", in honour