THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON 1666

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON 1666

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The summer of 1666, had been very hot, dry and stuffy.

There had been no rain for weeks, so the wooden, closely knit houses, and buildings were bone dry.

On September 2nd, in the King’s bakery in Pudding Lane, near London Bridge, a fire broke out that would ravage London for just under five days.

The strong east wind spread the flames, jumping from house to house.

Soon 300 houses quickly collapsed, as the fire spread into the warren of alleyways where the upper floors of the houses almost touched, in the narrow lanes.

Panic began to spread through the city, when it became apparent that the fire was out of control.

In an attempt to escape the raging flames, people fled to the river, trying to escape on boats.

The King, Charles II, ordered that all the houses in the path of the fire should be pulled down, to create a ‘fire-break.

With hooked poles, house after house in the path of the fire was pulled down, but the fire was too strong, and raged on.

On the 4th September, the King himself, joined in with fire crews, passing buckets of water to them, in an attempt to quell the flames.

St. Paul’s Cathedral was caught in the flames, as the refugees poured out of the City.

The acres of lead on the roof melted and poured down on to the street like a river, and the great cathedral collapsed.

The Tower of London escaped the inferno, and eventually the fire was brought under control, and by the 6th September had been extinguished altogether.

13,000 private dwellings had been destroyed, along with virtually all Civic buildings, only one fifth of London remained standing.

Surprisingly, only six people lost their lives.

Eighty-nine parish churches, the Guildhall, numerous other public buildings, jails, markets and fifty-seven halls were now just burnt-out shells. Hundreds of thousands of people were left homeless, with the loss of properties estimate at between 5-7 million.

King Charles gave the fire fighters a generous purse of 100 guineas to share between them......

Not for the last time would a nation honour its brave fire fighters.

With the overcrowded and disease ridden streets destroyed, a new cleaner London rose in its place.

The rats that had filled the streets, and carried the deadly plague, were dead.

Sir Christopher Wren was given the task of re-building London, and his masterpiece St. Paul’s Cathedral was started in 1675 and completed in 1711.

Wren also rebuilt 52 of the City churches, and his work turned the City of London into the city we recognise today.

Some buildings did survive the inferno, but only a handful can still be seen to this day.

We know much about this tragedy, through the eyes of Samuel Pepys, who recorded everything in his diary, via his splendid eyewitness accounts.

A monument was erected in Pudding Lane on the spot where the fire began and can be seen today, where it is a reminder of those terrible days in September 1666.......

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https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/disc.../great-fire-london-

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https://ko-fi.com/thetudorintruders

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17th century painting of The Great Fire Of London, by Lieve Verschuier