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The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the City Of London from September 2 to September 5 1666 , and resulted more or less in the destruction of the city. Before this fire, two Early Fires Of London , in 1133 / 1135 and 1212 , both of which destroyed a large part of the city, were known by the same name. Later, the Luftwaffe 's fire-raid on the City on 29th December 1940 became known as The Second Great Fire Of London . The fire of 1666 was one of the biggest calamities in the History Of London , and came at the end of the Great Plague Of London —a outbreak of Bubonic Plague that killed perhaps hundreds of thousands —the Great Fire is thought to have have brought a quicker end to the plague, by killing off any disease-carrying rats and their fleas. It destroyed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, 6 chapels, 44 Company Halls, the Royal Exchange , the Custom House, St Paul's Cathedral , the Guildhall , the Bridewell Palace and other City prisons, the Session House, four bridges across the rivers Thames and Fleet , and three city gates, and made homeless 100,000 people, one sixth of the city's inhabitants at that time. The death toll from the fire is unknown, and is traditionally thought to have been quite small, but a recent book theorizes that thousands may have died in the flames or from Smoke Inhalation . EVENTS '' ''', front page from Monday 3–10 September 1666, reporting on the Great Fire Of London . (Click image to enlarge and read)]] The fire broke out on Sunday morning, September 2 , 1666 . It started in Pudding Lane at the house of Thomas Farynor, a Baker to King Charles II . It is likely that the fire started because Farynor forgot to extinguish his oven before retiring for the evening and that some time shortly after midnight, smouldering embers from the oven set alight some nearby firewood. Farynor managed to escape the burning building, along with his family, by climbing out through an upstairs window. The baker's housemaid failed to escape and became the fire's first victim. Within an hour of the fire starting, the Lord Mayor Of London , Sir Thomas Bloodworth , was awakened with the news. He was unimpressed however, declaring that "a woman might piss it out." Most buildings in London at this time were constructed of highly Combustible materials like Wood and Straw , and sparks emanating from the baker's shop fell onto an adjacent building. Fanned by a strong wind from the east, once the fire had taken hold it swiftly spread. The spread of the fire was helped by the fact that buildings were built very close together with only a narrow alley between them. According to a contemporary source: Then, then the city did shake indeed, and the inhabitants did tremble, and flew away in great amazement from their houses, lest the flames should devour them: ''rattle, rattle, rattle'', was the noise which the fire struck upon the ear round about, as if there had been a thousand iron chariots beating upon the stones. You might see the houses ''tumble, tumble, tumble'', from one end of the street to the other, with a great crash, leaving the foundations open to the view of the heavens. The progress of the fire might have been stopped, but for the conduct of the Lord Mayor, who refused to give orders for pulling down some houses, ''without the consent of the owners''. Buckets were of no use, from the confined state of the streets. DESTRUCTION The fire consumed a staggering 13,200 House s and 87 Church es, among them the beloved St. Paul's Cathedral , which at that time was St. Paul's Church. While only 9–16 people were reported as having died in the fire, author Neil Hanson (''The Dreadful Judgement'') believes the true death toll numbered in the hundreds or the thousands. Hanson believes most of the fatalities were poor people whose bodies were Cremated by the intense heat of the fire, and thus their remains were never found. These claims are controversial, however. The destructive fury of this conflagration is thought never to have been exceeded in the world, by an accidental fire. ''Within'' the walls, it consumed almost five-sixths of the whole city; and ''without'' the walls it cleared a space nearly as extensive as the one-sixth part left unburnt within. Scarcely a single building that came within the range of the flames was left standing. Public buildings, churches, and dwelling-houses, were alike involved in one common fate. In the summary account of this vast devastation, given in one of the inscriptions on the Monument , and which was drawn up from the reports of the surveyors appointed after the fire, it is stated, that: The ruins of the city were 436 acres (1.8 km²), viz. 333 acres (1.3 km²) within the walls, and 63 acres (255,000 m²) in the liberties of the city; that, of the six-and-twenty wards, it utterly destroyed fifteen, and left eight others shattered and half burnt; and that it consumed 400 streets, 13,200 dwelling-houses, 89 churches chapels ; 4 of the city gates, Guildhall, many public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, and a vast number of stately edifices. The value of the property destroyed in the fire has been estimated as exceeding ten million '' which, greatly in decline by 1666, had taken the lives of 68,590 people, the previous year; and it also led to the building of some notable new buildings, such as the new St. Paul's Cathedral. The following remarks regarding the fire are recorded: Mr. Malcom, in ''"Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London in the Eighteenth Century,"'' (vol. ii. p. 378), says:
AFTERMATH AND CONSEQUENCES The fire had a marked and varied impact on , Christopher Wren and Samuel Pepys . After the fire, a rumour began to circulate that the fire was part of a Catholic plot. A simple-minded French watchmaker named Robert "Lucky" Hubert, confessed (possibly under Torture ) to being an agent of the Pope and starting the fire in Westminster . He later changed his story to say that he had started it at the bakery in Pudding Lane. He was convicted, despite overwhelming evidence that he could not have started the fire, and was Hanged at Tyburn on September 28 1666 . It is thought that the fire played a part in eradicating the Plague in London . Christopher Wren was put in charge of re-building the city after the fire. His original plans involved rebuilding the city in brick and stone to a grid plan with continental Piazza s and avenues. But because many buildings had survived to basement level, legal disputes over ownership of land ended the grid plan idea. From 1667 , Parliament raised funds for re-building London by taxing coal, and the city was eventually rebuilt to its existing street plan, but built instead out of brick and stone and with improved Sanitation and access. This is the main reason why today's London is a modern city, yet with a medieval design to its streets. Christopher Wren also re-built St Paul's Cathedral 11 years after the fire. Lessons in fire safety were learned, and when the current Globe Theatre was opened in 1997 , it was the first building in London with a Thatched Roof since The Fire. CULTURAL IMPACT The Monument To The Great Fire Of London , known simply as The Monument, was designed by Wren and Robert Hooke . It is close to the site where the fire started², near the northern end of London Bridge . The corner of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane where the fire ended was known as Pye Corner, and is marked by a small gilded statue known as the Fat Boy or the Golden Boy Of Pye Corner , supposedly a reference to the theory expounded by a non-conformist preacher who said:
John Dryden commemorated the fire in his poem of 1667 , '' Annus Mirabilis .'' Dryden worked, in his poem, to counteract paranoia about the causes of the fire and proposed that the fire was part of a year of miracles, rather than a year of disasters. The fact that Charles was already planning to rebuild a glorious city atop the ashes and the fact that there were so few reported fatalities were, to Dryden, signs of divine favor, rather than curse. This is an extract from the Diary of Samuel Pepys :
Pop culture references '' Doctor Who ''- In one episode, the Doctor suggests that he may have been responsible for the fire. Another Episode shows that he did indeed start the fire (albeit by accident). '' Batman Begins ''- The film's villain, Ra's Al Ghul , claims that his organization started the fire because they believed London to be decadent and corrupt. PREDICTIONS OF A FIRE IN LONDON There had been much prophecy of a disaster befalling London in 1666, since in Hindu-Arabic Numerals it included the Number Of The Beast and in Roman Numerals it was a declining-order list (MDCLXVI). Walter Gostelo wrote in 1658 "If fire make not ashes of the city, and thy bones also, conclude me a liar forever!…the decree is gone out, repent, or burn, as Sodom And Gomorrah !" It seemed to many, coming after a civil war and a plague, Revelation's third Horseman . Prophesies made by Ursula Southeil (Old Mother Shipton), William Lilly , and Nostradamus are also sometimes claimed to predict the Great Fire. A large fire had already burnt around the northern end of London Bridge in 1632. In 1661, John Evelyn warned of the potential for fire in the city, and in 1664, Charles II wrote to the Lord Mayor Of London to suggest that enforcing building regulation would help contain fires. FURTHER READING
FOOTNOTES # Farrinor's name is variously spelled Farriner, Fraynor, Farryner, or Farynor. # The Monument stands 61 metres (202 feet) tall, the height marking the monument's distance to the site of the king's baker Thomas Farynor's shop in Pudding Lane, where the fire began. # In 1986, the Baker's Company issued a public apology for the fire. EXTERNAL LINKS
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