What did John Keats blue plaque do at 85 Moorgate?

The Story

# 85 Moorgate, EC2 On October 31, 1795, in the Swan & Hoop inn that once stood on this very corner of Moorgate, John Keats entered the world—born into the modest but respectable world of innkeeping, far removed from the genteel literary circles he would later grace. His father, Thomas, managed this busy coaching inn, a place of constant activity where travellers, merchants, and local tradespeople moved through its doors, exposing young Keats to a vibrant cross-section of London life that would later infuse his poetry with such vivid earthiness and sensory precision. Though the family would leave Moorgate when Keats was barely two years old, this threshold—where an innkeeper's son first drew breath in a house of public congregation—marked the beginning of a poet who would become the voice of beauty, sensation, and democratic feeling in English literature. Standing here at 85 Moorgate, you're not just at a birthplace, but at the symbolic starting point of the poet who would later declare that a thing of beauty is a joy forever, whose journey began in the hustle of a London inn rather than in any grand country estate.