Named because it lies one mile from Aldgate, the old City gate.
The name has been used since the 13th century: it is recorded in 1288 as La Mile ende, Middle English for ‘the hamlet a mile away’, on the road from Aldgate to Colchester, later called the Great Essex Road. From around 1691 it was also called Mile End Old Town, because a separate settlement near Spitalfields had become known as Mile End New Town.