diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 64f24a487..8716a8ef0 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -105,3 +105,7 @@ website/package.json
 website/announcement.jade
 website/www/
 website/.gitignore
+
+# Python virtualenv
+venv
+venv/*
diff --git a/spacy/tests/spans/test_span.py b/spacy/tests/spans/test_span.py
index 79505f1cb..14c176edc 100644
--- a/spacy/tests/spans/test_span.py
+++ b/spacy/tests/spans/test_span.py
@@ -31,6 +31,12 @@ def test_spans_root(doc):
     assert span.root.text == 'sentence'
     assert span.root.head.text == 'is'
 
+def test_spans_string_fn(doc):
+    span = doc[0:4]
+    assert len(span) == 4
+    assert span.text == 'This is a sentence'
+    assert span.upper_ == 'THIS IS A SENTENCE'
+    assert span.lower_ == 'this is a sentence'
 
 def test_spans_root2(en_tokenizer):
     text = "through North and South Carolina"
diff --git a/spacy/tokens/span.pyx b/spacy/tokens/span.pyx
index 903ef26d1..fc5d26174 100644
--- a/spacy/tokens/span.pyx
+++ b/spacy/tokens/span.pyx
@@ -365,6 +365,14 @@ cdef class Span:
         def __get__(self):
             return ' '.join([t.lemma_ for t in self]).strip()
 
+    property upper_:
+        def __get__(self):
+            return ''.join([t.string.upper() for t in self]).strip()
+
+    property lower_:
+        def __get__(self):
+            return ''.join([t.string.lower() for t in self]).strip()
+
     property string:
         def __get__(self):
             return ''.join([t.string for t in self])